A while since we’ve done this. So, time again to condemn. Here’s a twelfth open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this week? Which evil political, cultural, social and religious and musical phenomena need condemnation? (Or should we change that to loud denunciation?)
You can condemn anything except The Long Blondes. (Who are touring Australia! Yay!)
But you can condemn Concrete Blonde singer Johnette Napolitano’s new solo cd for being weirdly 70s and in parts reminiscent of a cross between Supertramp, Led Zep and Queen (though you may well not think that’s a bad thing - did I mention the Simon and Garfunkel gene splice?)… Though I condemn myself for being critical because I’m sure the record is going to grow on me.
The Long Blondes
They look like they’re a fantastic live act. The sound quality isn’t so good on the first vid, but it gives a sense of the performance really well:
Johnette Napolitano
I condemn Johnette, with a kick arse voice, for singing an anaemic Leonard Cohen song. What is wrong with a CB original? I condemn “aging” as a concept, for applying far more stringently to women than to men. I condemn myself for a lack of humour on this subject. I condemn time (I’m looking at You, Saturn), and motherhood, in particular, for the previous condemnation.
There’s a reason why the Concrete Blonde reunion album was called Group Therapy. The clip to watch is this one
Things get better everyday you stay alive
then I'm amazed
every day
that the sun decides to rise
every minute, every hour, is another
chance to change
life is beautiful & terrible & strange.
My musical condemn is the 3RRR streaming server whic has crapped out for the last few days. And my musical non-condemn is Spicks & Specks for putting Suzanne Dowling back on the teev.
It’s just wrong.
No condemning of Johnette while I’m around, Kim;-)
There is a very strong connection between the music of Concrete Blonde and my time in LA. It brings back strong memories. Lovely choice of song Zarquon. Need to go as I have something in my eye.
I condemn aliens for patching black diva genes into 11 year old xtian white girls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozDh4NQveJs
(at least joss stone had the deceny, to have gone through puberty, and be english.)
the real version is so much scarier - and I also condemn the fact that black divas don’t sing or look like jennifer holliday anymore - wait until she sings at the end of this clip from the 1982 tony awards scene from dreamgirls - it’s frightening! (in a good way)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq4uc9b2s1o
I condemn fatuous rich f*cking rock stars and their greenie pretensions. I condemn Bono for never taking off the sunglasses and flying all over the world so politicians can suck up to him, achieving nothing for nobody. I condemn Johnette Napolitano for the “I’m Up Here” closer on her last album for being so great I had to listen to it five times in a row at loud volume, disturbing my cow-orkers, one of whom was a christian and now regards me with deep suspicion. I condemn Paul McCartney for making me waste 12 emusic credits on his crappy album. I condemn myself for not travelling to see Neko Case when she was here. I condemn battery manufacturers who can’t make a AAA battery last longer than a couple of hours in a cheap mp3 player. I condemn Rick Springfield cause “Jessie’s Girl” is so catchy.
I condemn you for that too, David! It was a fantastic gig and I condemn myself for linking to my own writeup:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/01/29/neko-case-live-at-the-troubadour-280107/
Yes Jo, some serious genetic splicing going on there. Hard to believe that voice could emerge from someone who hasn’t even reached puberty yet.
Which reminds me, after watching that, I condemn Australian talent show judges (’cept for Red Symons) for not being as half as brisk and pointed with their comments as US ones.
I also condemn Amanda Lear for not linking up with some decent songwriters, producers, art directors and related svengalis after this little number, instead of ending up in the wasteland of Italian eurodisco variety shows.
I condemn too the rest of you for not catching Nouvelle Vague while they were out here. A brillant show. Very professional and smooth yet full of stylish gallic energy and deft spontenanity. 2000 people singing “too drunk to fuck” and then “love will tear us apart again” at Hamer Hall is not something you hear every night.
And I condemn the Aberlour Glenlivet Distillery Co. Ltd. of Speyside, Scotland for only providing their products in 700ml bottles.
Oh look, an allnight bottlo just round the corner. Back soon.
Indeed, Nabs.
I condemn myself for not having heard of The Long Blondes before today. I’ll definitely be @ the Zoo on 3/8.
Well after viewing that Utubit, I’m certainly tempted to go long on some brunette blondes when they hit a local venue.
Also, why I think of it of it, I also condemn the event manager of Parliament House Victoria and the organisers of the 23rd International Conference on Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology for pulling the plug too early on a great pissup at Queen’s Hall just when a tipsy Nobel Laureate was about to treat us to his version of “Satisfaction” with new and apparently very original lyrics about the US’s National Institutes of Health funding policies.
I also condemn my keys for going missing just when I needed to make a mercy dash to the bottlo.
Found ‘em! Y’all can all relax now.
Have a listen to the lyrics on the second song, Nabs. “Who wants to introduce them to illict Russ Meyer films and dance all night to old Kinks tunes?” - that’s your style, n’est-ce pas? I condemn myself for not condemning anything else in this comment.
*phew* - was clutching my empty litre bottle in anxiety.
Can’t condemn. Too busy rocking out to the Long Blondes. What an awesome act! These folks rool! Thanks for the links!
I roundly condemn my failure to note Wanda Jackson’s presence in town for not one, but two shows at the Gaelic - of which I became aware immediately after the fact. Further, I condemn Wanda’s perplexingly anemic 2002 revisiting of her 1960 “Riot in Cell Block #9″. The Cramps serve as her backing band, yet are hobbled by a goody-goody version in which Wanda disavows her presence at said riot, and displays none of the demented destructive joy that made one fear for the State Militia who showed up to try and stop her fun. If becoming a Born-Again Christian means that one can no longer enjoy taking part in a prison riot then there is a serious defect in that product.
However, I commend Neko for writing the lyric, “Her bravery is mistaken for the thrashing in a lake / of a make-believe monster whose photo was a fakeâ€?.
And I commend the youthful Wanda for her version of “Hard Headed Woman”, where her obvious relish at being “a thorn in the side of a man” is an irrestible siren-song to dash oneself against the rocks.
I condemn myself. The lyrics I was talking about are in the third vid.
I’m totally going cd shopping tomorrow. I condemn Rocking Horse in advance if, as often happens, the moment a gig is announced in Time Off, they sell out of the albums…
So, who’s recovering now from the Le Tigre hiatus?
And having read the thread, I simultaneously say hello to and condemn Nabakov for his support of Nouvelle Vague. Sure, they’re an excellent outfit whose massively pleasing reworkings of songs appear to hold the promise of a new highway in an old Springsteen song; but at the end of that road there is nothing but pain and Señor Coconut.
Kim, can this mean that you’re going to have to start again at the beginning next time with “I won’t add my loud denounce to your loud denounce l”?
That doesn’t quite have quite the euphonious ring, does it? I’m sure that was a sentence Truman Capote never wrote…
Look, bollocks to the Long Blondes. Chrissie Hynde as imagined by the Housemartins.
Johnette Napolitano though, Joey ripped out my heart and left it somewhere in Kelleberrin
You quote that like it’s an indifferent thing.
And yes Cap’n Creighton, Senor Coconut is the thick end of the banana. Got any links to their music?
Incidentally NouVague also did brillant bluesy torchy versions of “Human Fly” and “Bella Lugosi’s Dead”.
I also condemn the Village Belle bottleshop for not automatically offering a brown paper bag for my whiskey so I could self-righteously refuse it.
And I condemn HM Goverment for offering a knighthood to Bono Pratt but not to Brian Eno or Jim Ballard - the two greatest living Englishmen. So far.
Sounds rather good. Can you point to any acts that sound like that?
I would like to condemn Neko Case for not being able to top “things that scare me” but that is probably premature so I will instead condemn Regina Spektor for being simultaneously entrancing and annoying. [link]
I condemn myself for forgetting that Regina Spektor was playing last Friday! I remembered only when I read the gig review in Time Off on the bus this arvo *sigh*
dont know about
they remind me alot of late seventies, early eighties indie bands - which is what they are aiming to sound like - Angie Pepper’s the Passengers - comes to mind
http://www.myspace.com/theoriginalpassengers
Face with No Name - should have been a bigger Oz hit way back when - fook - 1979/80, and of course Angie Pepper looked v. good in her bra.
Here’s what they say, jo:
http://www.thelongblondes.co.uk/biog.php?PHPSESSID=f1f85806d98c8303185aa164ee8b700c
Heh!
As is well known, Dr Cat, I add my condemn to the loud denounce!
Whatever…
*goes back to watching ‘November Rain’
kim
that’s their spin and that’s cool - but they really do sound like indie bands from around that time -
did you check out angie pepper?
and this old indie hit from newcastle’s pel mel is similar in sound too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KofUP7jPkMc&mode=related&search=
Yeah, Angie was cool, jo!
…..and lets face it - you’re not gunna say - “souxsie sioux without the weirdo make-up”
this doesn’t mean that i dont like them - sassy indie girl-led bands - what’s not to like?
Oooh, “No Word From China”, that takes me that does. To the days when I was slim and could thrive on goey for 36 hours.
But does anybody remember laughter? Or at least The Sparklers (with The Necks’ Chris Abrahams and Melanie Oxely showing she was an even better songwriter than her siblings), the great lost Australian summer band.
“does anybody remember laughter?”
Now you’re talking Nabs. Although it was more 36 hours on acid than wiz back in my Led Zep days.
Sorry. Was a bit harsh there but given all the pump, what I was hoping for was Chrissie Amphlett as imagined by the Smiths.
Oh and I condemn disappointing albums this year by QoTSA, the Stooges, and the White Stripes (and no marimba excuses either).