Show a little faith, there's magic in the night...

My wedding song.

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Where are they now? The Daily Show edition

I went to a taping of The Daily Show back in March (It was, of course, awesome) and it got me thinking: What the hell ever happened to Vance DeGeneres? Seriously. Where the crap did that guy go? He was awesome.

Cut to a dark club in New Orleans about two weeks ago. The boy took me to Jazz Fest and we were at a Cowboy Mouth show (they had that one song, that one year, about that girl). I was standing there just looking at the band, who I knew nothing about. The boy is going all crazy because they're his favorite band in the world and he's seen them roughly 100 million times. I tried to pay attention to the show (which was actually quite good) but I kept on staring at the rhythm guitarist. He looked so oddly familiar. I just couldn't place it though.

Me: Honey, who's the guitar player?
Boy: Uh, I don't know. Some heroin-addict Keith Richards wannabe.
Me: He looks familiar...
Boy: Woooooooooooooooo!

Now this was starting to bug me. Luckily, Fred, the lead singer, is a chatty sort. Actually, I shouldn't say "luckily." The dude wouldn't stop talking. He kept on telling us that we weren't loud enough, or we weren't dancing enough, or whatever. It was pissing me off--I mean, seriously. Dude. I'm paying you fucking money. You're putting on a show for me. Now stop telling me what to do and play your damn songs so I can go home. Fuck.

Anyway...

During one of his monologues, Fred referred to "Vance's" new guitar.

Holy Shit.

The heroin-addict Keith Richards wannabe is VANCE FREAKING DEGENERES!

It blew my mind. He went from a Daily Show correspondent to a guitarist for a New Orleans rock/punk-type band. It was the greatest discovery ever made. So for those of you who have been mourning for Vance, you can stop. I found him (and I totally don't think he's on the horse, so don't worry).

Play me a song...

So I was knocked out on Benedryl last night (something to which I am becoming deliciously addicted to) when I hear the Ba-Ching! of doom indicating that I have a new text message. I rubbed my inexplicably puffy eyes (seriously. I've developed some sort of weird skin condition and my eyelids have been swollen since Monday) and look at the cable box. 2:45. Shit. I grab my phone and it's the boy. He's text-messaged me to let me know that Kurt Vonnegut has died. I assume he thought I needed to know this at 2:30 in the morning because before he discovered the Television Without Pity book, my copy of Breakfast of Champions was his preferred bathroom reading when he was at my apartment.

So after I called him and ascertained that indeed, that was all he needed to tell me and nothing else bad was going on, I tried to get back to sleep. But I couldn't. Not even the siren song of Benedryl could lull me into a slumber. Then I realized I had a Billy Joel song stuck in my head. I didn't know how Vonnegut died, but maybe my subconscious thought it was a "heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack," because I had "Moving Out" playing on a continuous loop in my brain. So naturally my thoughts turned to Billy Joel. Or more specifically, the ghost of Billy Joel.

Now, I'm aware that Billy Joel isn't dead. However, I don't think this precludes Billy Joel's ghost from knocking about. And what if he did? What if Billy Joel's ghost visited you and hung out and gave you advice and stuff?

It would be amazing.

You'd have Billy Joel, at his piano, kind of floating over your left shoulder and just hanging out with you as you went about your business. He would play songs for you as you walked down the street, but if you were tired of hearing "New York Minute" for the frillionth time, he would be totally cool with you busting out your Ipod while he just tinkered quietly with some new material.

But the ghost of Billy Joel is so much more than a soundtrack. He'd give you advice as well. And since he's at his piano anyway and always trying to add to his canon, he'll sing your advice to you.

"Woahh, woahh, ooooh, girl. Dontcha go givin' that guy your number. He looks like he'll eat all of your food and then ask to borrow your metrocard and never return it-it-it-it-it-it. Oh, yeah!" Totally helpful, right?

Sure, except there's a downside to ghost of Billy Joel. He'll hang out with you and give you advice, but all of his advice somehow always ends with you crashing your car into a tree on Long Island. That's why, at roughly 3 am. I made the decision to hold out for the ghost of Elton John.

The 80s Son

This is the best/most disturbing thing I've seen in a long time. Thank you, g14.

He's got money, the money I deserve.

What I love most about this Rhett Miller performance of "The New Kid" is the camerawork. It takes me straight back to TV-3 and working the noon show on a Friday that had a musical guest.

"Okay, camera 2: Zoom in on the guitar, slow zoom out to a medium shot."

"Camera 3: Try to get a medium shot at a cool angle."

How Kona got her groove back without marrying a much younger man and finding out like, ten years later that he's gay, which, come on. Ten years?

I've been in a little bit of a musical rut lately (for almost a year.) My music rotation has been a largely uninterrupted sequence of Old 97s, Rhett Miller, Jason Mraz, Liz Phair, Real Johnny Cash and fake Johnny Cash. My Ipod provides a soundtrack for my day, a beat to walk to. And lately, my beat has been a little...guitar driven.

Maybe it's because music is escape. I live in the ghetto, and as E says, "not the quaint ghetto. The ghetto with broken glass, chicken bones and hypodermic needles littering the sidewalks." So I listen to music that reminds me of calmer places, like Texas, or Virginia, or prison. It's just easier to deal with dogs shitting in the middle of the sidewalk when you're listening to music with lines that talk about a fever being "hotter than a pepper sprout."

Moreso than escapism, I've been hit with a simple lack of good hip-hop. From November '03 to August of '05, we saw the release of The Black Album, the subsequent brilliant mash-up, Kanye West's debut, Talib Kweli's second album, Mos Def's second album, John Legend's debut, a Kanye-produced Common album, and Kanye's follow-up. Even Eminem's fourth studio album provided a few good songs and an eerily prescient music video. But since last summer? Nothing. Sure, I've been told that I need to buy The Minstrel Show, but I still haven't been able to get really excited about anything that's been released. Until Robert DeNiro made me get excited again.

April 25th marked the beginning of the fifth Tribeca Film Festival, Robert DeNiro's ploy to make me thrilled to pay $13 to see a movie at the Regal by my office. Every year, Tribeca has a three-day series called the Tribeca Drive-In. These are free outdoor movies shown at the World Financial Center Plaza. On Saturday, I went to the premiere of Word.Life (AKA The Hip-Hop Project.) The Hip-Hop Project is a documentary about a New York City program called Art Start. The film spans three years and follows a group of inner-city teenagers as they make a hip-hop album. The process is more than just writing rhymes. They put this album together from the beginning. They help secure funding and studio space as well as produce, write and perform all of the tracks. The film itself is amazing and is a must-see even for people who hate hip-hop. At points in the screening, the audience was cheering, yelling and crying; we all got sucked into the drama of these kids' daily lives.

While the film reminded me about what I love about hip-hop (the emotion, the pain, the roots in poetry) we had the extra bonus of a Hip-Hop Project performance before the film started. The energy and the raw passion that they showed is so rare in a lot of music today. They had everyone on their feet and as corny as it sounds, they left more than a few people inspired. I went online and ordered their CD, the proceeds of which go back to the Art Start program, the purpose of which is to "value and nurture the voices, hearts and minds of under-served children and teenagers and help them transform their lives through the creative process."

I'm looking forward to getting the CD and walking to a brand-new beat.

Feel free to hate me...

...because this is where I'm going to be on April 13th.


Rhett Miller & The Believers
Nicolai Dunger
WEBSTER HALL
doors:
7:00
18+

The time on the clock when we realized it's so late...

Just when I was feeling awkward about sharing my secret Dashboard Confessional shame, Susan sends me this. And suddenly, talking about a song doesn't seem nearly as bad because she has the video! And this is why Susan rules.

Lou Bega---Yes, Lou Bega. Or reason #849 why I'm going to die alone.

I have a brand new job that I'm completely digging and a really nice apartment--by New York standards anyway. The trade off though is that I have a retarded commute. I live in the boonies of New York City, otherwise known as the Bronx. My office, on the other hand, is on the very bottom tip of Manhattan. Meaning that I start from halfway up in The Bronx, and travel down through the entire island of Manhattan to get to work. I leave the house around 7:30 and get to my office around 9. What keeps me from killing people is my Ipod. I listen to music from the time I leave my house to the time I arrive in my office. At which point I unplug my headphones and plug my computer speakers in so I can listen the entire time at work. When I leave, I plug the headphones back in and listen until I get home. When I get home, the Ipod stays in my purse, but if I'm on the computer, like I am now, I've got Itunes going. The point is, I've been thinking about music a lot lately.

I had the Ipod on shuffle the other day on the train, and "Hands Down" came on (I know...shut up.) The first thing that came into my mind when this song started playing was sitting in the Herald Square subway station at around 1 in the morning after the Rockafeller tree lighting. The boy I was seeing and I were sitting on the bench. He was getting ready to go down to Brooklyn and I was getting ready to go up to The Bronx. It was that typical stalling because we didn't want to go home yet thing, but we had to work in the morning and blah, blah, blah. He got this really serious look on his face and started to recite the lyrics to this song in this ridiculous faux-heartfelt way and the abject lameness of the song combined with his undeniable dorkiness just cracked me up.

So I'm listening to this song and remembering that night, and I got to thinking about all of the other songs that for one reason or another remind me of boys that I dated. So I made a list. Then I looked at it and came that much closer to really understanding why none of these relationships worked out. Because...Lou Bega. Seriously.

1. Far Behind--Candlebox
2. Smooth--Santana f/Rob Thomas
3.Barracuda--Heart
4. Can't Take My Eyes off of You--Frankie Valli
5. Everything to Me--Liz Phair
6. Come Together--The Beatles
7. La Vida Loca--Ricky Martin
8. Wonderful Place--N.E.R.D
9. Mother Mother--Tracy Bonham
10. Hands Down--Dashboard Confessional
11. Johnny Feelgood--Liz Phair
12. I Got a Girl--Lou Bega
13. Any Fall Out Boy song

I don't know who I'm kidding. I should really just buy like, ten cats right now and call it a day.

The Friction in your Jeans

Okay, so it's a little old, but I can't help it. This just makes me so happy every time I see it.

Are you feelin’ it? A honky’s guide to hip-hop

I am pretty much the whitest white girl imaginable. My German-Irish heritage made sure that I was born with white-blonde hair, big blue eyes, and pink skin that gets angry in the sun. In short, I was Hitler’s wet dream. All heil me.

As the years went on, my hair turned from blonde to dark brown and my eyes turned from blue to green. No longer an Aryan princess, I still have plenty of white-girl in me. I have no inherent sense of rhythm, I am utterly unable to use slang unironically, and I am unabashedly in love with early Rod Stewart. If Reason to Believe comes on the radio, it’s all over. There will be no talking, but there will be three and a half minutes of off-key singing and frantic emoting with my hands. I feel you, Rod Steward. I feel you. Same goes for Elton John and Billy Joel. These men transcend music, to the point where I shouldn’t even call them men. They are Gods.

My high school friends reacted to my bizarre taste in music by dropping subtle hints like leaving brochures for retirement homes and coupons for Polident in my car. They were at white as I (the suburbs of Northern Virginia didn’t have many people whose skin color could be described by a coffee drink. [At least, not in high school. They were pretty much in the kitchens.]) yet they just didn’t get it. How could they not see the utter brilliance of Crocodile Rock?

I’m a white girl on the surface; I’m a white girl in my bones. And for a long time, that was my reference point for reality. It was my identity. But recently, I’ve began listening to my soul. And what my soul told me, is that I’m a sistah. Just like Rod Stewart spoke to me in my adolescence, Jay-Z speaks to me now. I know what it’s like to be a hustler. To be a thug. Common told me what it’s like on The Corner. Kanye West made me want to drop out of college, despite the fact that I had graduated over a year prior. Talib Kweli convinced me that “the pigs killed B.I.G and Pac too. And if they didn’t, then they know who did.” That is some heavy shit right there. It’s a burden, all of this understanding and knowledge. It’s a weight I am happy to bear.

Unfortunately, most of my snowy brothers and sisters don’t agree. Hip-Hop scares them. In their world, it’s all, bitches and Hos, and gats in yo’ ass. Or something. It’s a myth that tons of white people listen to hip-hop. Tons of white people listen to Top 40 music. If TRL tells them that 50 Cent is okay, then they will happily shake their asses to the marble-mouthed stylings of an ex-crack dealer who was shot in the face. To them, 50 is the same as Gwen Stefani or Fall Out Boy. It’s controlled danger, like a Fear Factor stunt with harnesses and safety wires.

I hang out with very few people who actually listen to hip-hop. Most of them are the type of people who said, "Jay-Z's calling Beyonce a bitch!" the first time they heard 99 Problems. So with this in mind, I feel as though it is my duty as a white-girl sistah to take away the fear. I have created a mixtape; A guide, if you will, to the wonderful world of hip-hop. Read the guide, download the songs, and before you know it, you’ll stop averting your eyes and crossing the street whenever hip-hop gets too close.

1. The Boogie Man Song--Mos Def
I have a crazy obsession with Elvis Costello. I know I'm not alone (at least in my mind, I'm not). The first couple of times I heard this song, it confused me. It sounded like something, but I couldn't quite figure out what. Then I realized what it was: This is the best Elvis Costello song that Elvis Costello never wrote. While it's not a typical hip-hop song, it shows that hip-hop artists are capable of doing more and it's a good way to start a novice off, especially someone who is resistant.

2. Bridging the Gap--Nas
It's a family-friendly way to introduce someone to Nas. It has a familiar sound that non-fans can identify with. Plus I have a crush on Nas' dad. Seriously. He's adorable. Screw you for judging me.

3. The New Workout Plan--Kanye West (not the shitty remix)
I forced a friend of mine to listen to this CD right after it came out and subjected him to my insane hip-hop stylings. He was not impressed with me, but he did dig the CD, especially this song. After he heard the line, "All the Mocha Lattes, you got to do Pilates," he couldn't stop laughing and said that this would be the first Hip-Hop CD he would ever buy.

4. Ms. Jackson--Outkast
Fun Southern Rap. It's been around for a while, and it won't freak anyone out.

5. Guns & Roses--Jay-Z feat. Lenny Kravitz
A fun Rock/Rap combo, and true white-people-music-lovers will notice that the guitar underlying the entire song is not Lenny Kravitz, but a song called Arco Arena by Cake.

6. Shoop--Salt N Peppa
We've gotta represent the ladies, and Foxy Brown can suck it. Plus, this is my Karaoke song. I do all three parts. I'm very talented.

7. The Proud--Talib Kweli
It's time to get socially conscious, ya'll. The first time I listened to this song, I was at the gym. I nearly fell off the Stairmaster. I had to listen to it again. It'll get you thinking.

8. Fight the Power--Public Enemy
It stays in the socially-conscious realm and will be familiar to anyone who's seen Do the Right Thing. Flava Flav hasn't always been a reality TV star, kids.

9. The Food—Common feat. Kanye West
It’s a fact. White people love Dave Chappelle. And those who don’t fast forward through the musical performances will recognize this song from season one of Chappelle’s Show.

10. Lodi Dodi--Snoop Dog
By this time, they shouldn't be too scared, so they should be open to a little stereotypical early 90s rap without too much of the bitches and hos. This song, not originally being from the early 90s, has the added bonus of introducing them to Slick Rick.

Seriously. Get this playlist on your I-Pod and pretty soon people will be doing double-takes. “Who’s that—is that Steve? Dude’s got Soul!” You can do it; it’s not hard. Embrace hip-hop and it will embrace you. Don’t be scurred.