Alright, I know this is a little out of character for me lately, but I want to go way out on a limb here and recommend that you all leave your little huts next Wednesday, June 27th , and scamper down to the Wellfleet Beachcomber to see a new, tough little band called the Detroit Cobras. For any right-thinking American, leaving the house nowadays has to be regarded as a potentially hazardous proposition; yet I truly believe that these guys -once described as the Ronettes crossed with the Rolling Stones in Motown (!! -I mean, how cool would /that/ be?) - might be, uh, fun.
I use the term "guys" rather loosely here, as two of these guys, namely co-leaders Rachel Nagy on vocals and Mary Ramirez on guitar, clearly aren't. There's plenty of bad girl attitude to their work, but it's nicely understated (and, unlike Cape Cod's original, beloved bad girl group, the Extremes -and when will that reunion finally happen? - endearingly under-dressed, as the band uniform seems to lean heavily toward whatever-I-had-on-in-the-van wear.)
These folks play with a serious kick, loud and proud and relatively unadorned, and the music is a sort of rocked-up soul thing, but with a minimum of guitar effects and arena rock hooey. The guitars sound like guitars, careless and clangy, maybe not all that far from Joe Strummer-ville, and the drummer kicks. And the clear aim is to make you dance and go nuts, except for the occasional ballads, which were made for melting. Most of their songs sound like they were recorded in about half an hour, and there's a feeling of abandon to it that's just swell. Some of it's cave man stuff, but it's smart cave-man stuff (or, if you prefer, cave-person.)
One of the most distinctive and delightful things about the band is that they more or less steadfastly refuse to write their own songs, to which I can only say, thank you. The number of awful songwriters on tap lately has truly mushroomed out of control, and I'd like to thank the Detroit Cobras for at least trying to stem the tide. Plus, the material they pick is masterful, and obviously born of large record collections and dogged pursuit, alternating between obscure songs that you can't believe someone else knew about and obscure songs that you didn't know about. It's record collector's heaven: Ruby Johnson, the Cookies, the Blossoms, the Staple Singers, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Tammi Terrell, etc. (plus, the goils are really cute, and look like they might be on something.)
Even with all these other assets, though, the thing that really cinches the deal is singer Rachel Nagy, who had all sorts of interesting things to say -including "it's ironic that I'm a singer, 'cause it has always been my view that white women should not sing." From that point on, we got along famously.
Rachel's a great singer, not just a good one. She understands that the first focus of a singer shouldn't be showing off or belting or giving it all you got or putting in ten more doo-dads per syllable; it should be about singing the damn song, period, in a way that lets you know how the songwriter felt. For someone working a genre that sometimes leans toward histrionics, she has a restraint that's very intriguing.
More than anyone, Nagy sounds like Irma Thomas, most obviously on the Irma covers, "It's Raining", "Breakaway", and especially a just plain perfect version of "Cry On." There's a little of that bluesy feeling throughout, though: beat up, resigned, but sweet. She calls Irma "my godhead, my hero. I saw her live at her club in New Orleans [since washed away in Katrina, alas] and fell on the ground, screamed and cried. I could've washed her feet with my tears and hair." She got it.
Plus, she just turns out to be one of those rare people with pipes, an instantly satisfying and unadulterated sound so compelling that... well, I don't really buy that whole reading-the-phonebook analogy, but she's got pipes, and pipes is good. You don't have to show it off, everybody knows from note one.
Ms. Nagy seemed to share my feelings on the tragic lack of smoke in bars nowadays ("I mean, it's New York in the winter and you're supposed to stand outside and smoke -that's retarded!"), coddling of modern chillens through excessive monitoring of various health issues ("They're gonna turn 25 and a butterfly's gonna land on their head and they're gonna have an aneurysm") (and how'd we ever get going on that, anyway?), hatred of the singing of Janis Joplin (otherwise Janis seemed ok), and of people who get all bent out out of shape when they lose children (especially people who have multiples to begin with. After all, as Rachel pointed out, "you can always have more kids.")
At one point, she did imply that the band was born joyfully out of the record collection of its founder, since-departed guitarist Steve Shaw. She said she never meant to be a singer, and that she was plied with drinks early on, when the band played for the best reason, which is wanting to make those noises enough. "We sort of pulled a fast one -we said we were gonna break up, and then as soon as [Steve] left, Mary and I giggled and started up again. The only reason we keep boys around is as archivists; the girls job is to dance and sing."
I like a girl with her feet on the ground.
The Cobras' five records have their ups and downs, but the ups are pretty wonderful; their best album might still be 2001's "Life, Love, and Leaving", though their latest, "Tied and True", gives it a run for its money; the one Cobras' original, the fabulous, hilarious, "Hot Dog", is on 2005's "Baby". They're a good downloading project, as you might not need whole albums, but there's songs here that will rock your world.
And they've never been here before, and who knows when they'll pass this way again? Those who must rock should be in attendance.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Pretzels & Dick
Man, pretzels are so good sometimes! -know what I mean? Most of the time, you don't even think about pretzels, it's as if they weren't even food, and then, suddenly, for whatever reason, the memories come flooding back: lord, these are so salty and good with booze!
It's the same with getting drunk. When I grew up, people valued getting drunk, but nowadays, being pie-faced has somehow acquired a patina of unrespectability, as if it just wasn't p.c. -almost as if it was looked down upon! Sometimes I think it's this whole no smoking, avoidance-of-cancer thing, taken to extremes. Sure, you don't seek out cancer; but do you really want to see who's sitting next to you at the bar that clearly? At one time, these were like phantom figures. Now that everything's smoke-free, I can see my friends way too well. And now I'm supposed to stop drinking?
And if that's true, why did God give us pretzels? I mean, I'm glad He did and everything, but it's hard to believe nourishment was His goal with the pretzel. But pretzels are so full of mystery! Isn't it obvious that drunk people would've been satisfied with so much less?
Which brings me to browsing for music in the digital age.
Look, you've got to understand: I was a hard-core vinyl guy. I still have literally thousands of records, untouched for many years, surrounding the stuff I do touch, and in most cases sounding way better than the stuff I do touch, but all the ?new? stuff is on cd, so I end up playing nothing but cds. Records were my first love, and perhaps my truest, though even the ceaselessly, effortlessly, unavoidably radiant Mrs. Kelp might agree that I've tried to become more moderate in my ways to the point of appreciating in-person humans to a roughly similar degree (at least after the fact, on reflection); but oh my god, records were SO CUTE!!! So large, so space-ship like! Man, that was a product!
But cds would make nice earrings...
Anyway, the only reason I mention that is to explain that I'm not, by nature, a computer-y guy, though I definitely have become one. If you'd have told me ten or twenty years I'd be spending this much time TYPING! -well, I certainly would've denied it, in fact did deny it when some of you did in fact point out the painful obviousness of it: we're all in thrall to these little screens, these little keyboards. And they're, like, wicked cool!
OK, so, like, check it out, here's a message to my brethren old and cranky-ites: this is an arguably good browsing situation.
The premise is that you can pretty much hear thirty seconds of anything, on Itunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic, all these digital music outlets, whatever, people will play you thirty seconds of absolutely anything. They've somehow declared all beginnings completely worthless -what a nineties point of view!
So you've got to decide, really fast, is it good, or is it stinky?
Being contemporary is so relentless.
But here's the good news: I tried this test on the new Wilco album, ?Sky Blue Sky? (I've always kind of liked Wilco), first listening to the songs as 30 second samples (on Itunes) and then in full (on Rhapsody, as some sort of promotion), and I'm gratified to say that in retrospect the 30 second samples seemed to give me all the information I needed to choose the two or three tracks I liked enough to keep (this also takes into account the possibility of liking something ok, but not quite to the point of ever needing to hear it again.) This situation in turn made it possible to (more or less) avoid an entire Bjork album! (her latest, whatever it is.) (Which makes it sound like I don't like poor Bjork, and I do, I like Bjork a lot, but the thirty second hints told me I don't need this particular album. It's like I just found ten bucks!)
Remember, the world is getting worse and worse, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaking of everything going downhill continuously, I have to tell you that my good friend and personal hero Dick Wetmore died a few months ago, down in Naples, Florida, where he'd spent the last few years so happily with his terrific wife Marge. I'm sure Dick will be remembered by many locally, as he spent many years on the cape, which he obviously dearly loved -and visa versa. He was famous with hepsters as being one of the first guys to play bebop on a violin, and he was a wonderful musician on both violin and cornet as well as a truly charismatic singer. Dick was personable beyond reason, and playful as a pup. He always said he was from the planet Twylo, and most of us believed him.
And I wrote way more about Dick than I wrote about anyone else. After all, how often do you meet someone from Twylo?
A memorial service will be held for him at the Duck Creeke Inn in Wellfleet at 12 noon on Sunday, May 27th ... there's bound to be some great anecdotes, so come on down.
They may even have pretzels.
It's the same with getting drunk. When I grew up, people valued getting drunk, but nowadays, being pie-faced has somehow acquired a patina of unrespectability, as if it just wasn't p.c. -almost as if it was looked down upon! Sometimes I think it's this whole no smoking, avoidance-of-cancer thing, taken to extremes. Sure, you don't seek out cancer; but do you really want to see who's sitting next to you at the bar that clearly? At one time, these were like phantom figures. Now that everything's smoke-free, I can see my friends way too well. And now I'm supposed to stop drinking?
And if that's true, why did God give us pretzels? I mean, I'm glad He did and everything, but it's hard to believe nourishment was His goal with the pretzel. But pretzels are so full of mystery! Isn't it obvious that drunk people would've been satisfied with so much less?
Which brings me to browsing for music in the digital age.
Look, you've got to understand: I was a hard-core vinyl guy. I still have literally thousands of records, untouched for many years, surrounding the stuff I do touch, and in most cases sounding way better than the stuff I do touch, but all the ?new? stuff is on cd, so I end up playing nothing but cds. Records were my first love, and perhaps my truest, though even the ceaselessly, effortlessly, unavoidably radiant Mrs. Kelp might agree that I've tried to become more moderate in my ways to the point of appreciating in-person humans to a roughly similar degree (at least after the fact, on reflection); but oh my god, records were SO CUTE!!! So large, so space-ship like! Man, that was a product!
But cds would make nice earrings...
Anyway, the only reason I mention that is to explain that I'm not, by nature, a computer-y guy, though I definitely have become one. If you'd have told me ten or twenty years I'd be spending this much time TYPING! -well, I certainly would've denied it, in fact did deny it when some of you did in fact point out the painful obviousness of it: we're all in thrall to these little screens, these little keyboards. And they're, like, wicked cool!
OK, so, like, check it out, here's a message to my brethren old and cranky-ites: this is an arguably good browsing situation.
The premise is that you can pretty much hear thirty seconds of anything, on Itunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, eMusic, all these digital music outlets, whatever, people will play you thirty seconds of absolutely anything. They've somehow declared all beginnings completely worthless -what a nineties point of view!
So you've got to decide, really fast, is it good, or is it stinky?
Being contemporary is so relentless.
But here's the good news: I tried this test on the new Wilco album, ?Sky Blue Sky? (I've always kind of liked Wilco), first listening to the songs as 30 second samples (on Itunes) and then in full (on Rhapsody, as some sort of promotion), and I'm gratified to say that in retrospect the 30 second samples seemed to give me all the information I needed to choose the two or three tracks I liked enough to keep (this also takes into account the possibility of liking something ok, but not quite to the point of ever needing to hear it again.) This situation in turn made it possible to (more or less) avoid an entire Bjork album! (her latest, whatever it is.) (Which makes it sound like I don't like poor Bjork, and I do, I like Bjork a lot, but the thirty second hints told me I don't need this particular album. It's like I just found ten bucks!)
Remember, the world is getting worse and worse, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaking of everything going downhill continuously, I have to tell you that my good friend and personal hero Dick Wetmore died a few months ago, down in Naples, Florida, where he'd spent the last few years so happily with his terrific wife Marge. I'm sure Dick will be remembered by many locally, as he spent many years on the cape, which he obviously dearly loved -and visa versa. He was famous with hepsters as being one of the first guys to play bebop on a violin, and he was a wonderful musician on both violin and cornet as well as a truly charismatic singer. Dick was personable beyond reason, and playful as a pup. He always said he was from the planet Twylo, and most of us believed him.
And I wrote way more about Dick than I wrote about anyone else. After all, how often do you meet someone from Twylo?
A memorial service will be held for him at the Duck Creeke Inn in Wellfleet at 12 noon on Sunday, May 27th ... there's bound to be some great anecdotes, so come on down.
They may even have pretzels.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Frozen Foot Baby Ping Pong
Great new game! It's called "Frozen Foot Baby Ping Pong", and it's way fun! You folks who already like ping pong will completely lose it when you play this delightful and wicked zangy new sport; in fact, your bowels may explode with happiness (I know mine sure did.)
So basically, like I said, if you've got any kind of grasp of regular ping pong, Frozen Baby Foot Ping Pong won't really even be all that much of a stretch. The only difference is, you can't move your feet at all, and you have to try to make it as easy for your opponent as you can by hitting the ball really softly and right to him. That way, the not-moving-your-feet-rule makes it harder, but the fact that you're only playing baby ping pong, with someone who's handicapped and trying his hardest not to win, balances that out pretty well. It ends up being sort of the same as regular pingpong, in that it's harder, but also way easier. But it's still different, kind of, and it's been a long winter.
Every winter is a long winter, and that's why I wish I didn't live here. But I do, and if a mild-mannered diversion like Frozen Foot Baby Ping Pong (which, by the way, doesn't even use real babies) can relax me a little every now and then, I'm happy to endure it, I think (probably.)
What I'm particularly excited about right now, though, is that the ever-increasingly superb Mrs. Kelp and I are headed away on a fabulous vacation on Monday, and we are totally psyched (or, if you prefer, "glad.") We haven't been on a vacation in years, other than the fact that we're almost never exactly working to any noticeable degree, anyway. Perhaps we don't actually deserve a break as much as a regular couple that had "actual" jobs, but we feel that not having a job produces quite a bit of anxiety, and that's why we're going on vacation.
Of course, going on a vacation is a delicate matter. My thoroughly bitchin' wife, the ever rhapsodic Mrs. K., prefers not to travel too far from home, the better that we can get back there right away when whichever poor sap we got to pet sit realizes what they've gotten themselves into (our collection of mutts -we don't like to say how many, let's just say more than five -is relatively high on mange, not to mention random, impractical and un-recommended velocity; there's just so many of them, and each one is so extraordinarily unstable!) If the stupid sitters would just use the damn moat, they'd be better off, but they always forget to wind up the drawbridge.
Anyway, it's a hilarious assignment, and we've grown accustomed to the panicky phone calls; but while my wife wants to be available in case of trouble, I feel it's funnier if we aren't. Thus, I'm always trying to talk her into going somewhere far away, while she's a little reticent about crossing the bridge (especially since that time a few years ago when we went to Worcester for Oktoberfest... man, I'll never live that one down.)
But this year she said she'd go somewhere sporty, and there was this place I've always been dying to go to, but I was worried about the language barrier; and then we both decided "aw, what the heck? It's not like speaking English really seems to help that much anyway!"; so, we're going, day after tomorrow, to New Bedford! The only downside is, the travel time means you lose most of the first day (we travel kind of slow-ly), which is too bad.
Mrs. K is all in a tizzy tonight, as we're not sure what the climate there might be like exactly, so she can't figure out what to wear. I always tell her, "you wear whatever you want -I'll be in my sweat suit", but it never seems to help. That woman is impossible!
Random suggestions: go rent a movie called "Half Nelson" with Ryan Gosling and Shareeka Epps. It's a about a high school teacher with a substance problem, and it is remarkably free of false notes of any kind -both Kelps just loved it.
Also, here's some good things to look up on YouTube: talking cats (you could also try entering "Long John Johnson"); human slingshot; and dick in a box. Also be aware that there's a large wad of Ricky Gervais (the genius creator of the original British "The Office"
series) material up there, including a five part presentation of Gervais interviewing "Seinfeld" / "Curb Your Enthusiasm" creator Larry David.
Ok, you're on your own.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Blair Kelp on Sportsdesk - Superbowl Deview
First of all, I've changed my name to "Blair". Frankly, I've been thinking for some time that "Thurston" really sounds a little too butch, whereas "Blair" really doesn't.
When I originally made up the name "Thurston Kelp" (I know you'll be interested in this!), I wanted to use "Thurston" because I thought it sounded British, but I was never really satisfied with it, and worried that it didn't sound British enough. Now that I'm Blair, though, my name sounds British as all get-out. Or at least the "Blair" part does. Now "Kelp" seems like the problem -it's so, mmmm... short. I may eventually have to take the whole thing in and have it hyphenated, once and for all.
But that's not your problem, or at least it hadn't been until recently! I'm also all excited about all the awards and the Superbowl and everything, even though some of them happened already, and I'm not sure which ones or when!
I was fortunate enough to take in the Superbowl (and, by the way, perhaps this is a good time to apologize for being so tardy lately with the damn kolumn, but I really have been so busy picking my name and everything. But I know, I was thinking about you guys all the time and how I must be disappointing you, or you may have been even concerned, thinking, oh! I've missed my deadline by almost three weeks, surely that's long even by my so-called standards, is there a substance problem with old Blair or what?)) (By the way, I also considered "Rusty", Rusty Kelp, but it didn't sound British enough, it sounded more like a burlesque MC. Of course the reason we got into this whole mess in the (first) place was because my original editor at the Cape Codder ((who shall remain nameless, at least until I remember his name, wait! -it was Karen! What a great name!))) who objected to my original (or, as I just typed, "orinal") pseudonym, R. Nalton Thruppy.))))) and, anyway, it was a pretty good game.
I particularly enjoyed when, early in the game, the Colts' kicker, Adam Vinatieri (until this year one of the Pats' biggest heroes), missed a field goal, and a jubilant roar went up in front of tv sets all over New England as spoiled, bitter Patriots fans celebrated his momentary failure and embarrassment. Rarely do you get to see so many revel so heartily in misery of such a tangential degree. If only he'd kept missing, northeast football fans would've been over the moon, overcome with joy that we might have finally traded one of our greats just prior to his disgrace instead of just after like usual.
As a person who always enjoys seeing rich people inconvenienced, I very much appreciated getting to see the millionaires collide in horrible, near-monsoon conditions -in other words, perfect football weather! I must say I was looking forward to an unsightly debacle at halftime, figuring Prince, who's only a little fella anyway and arguably past his prime, to be squashed flat by the torrential downpour; but what to my wondering eyes did appear but a near-perfect (after all, he did cover "Proud Mary", so let's not get carried away), seemingly effortless, entirely inspired show! Damn! What a guy!
And, sure, I guess a lot of papers probably got you this news faster, but I'll bet not in this kind of detail.
The Colts won by pretty much, probably about 36 to about 12 for the other team.
I'd like to thank my research team, but I don't have one. They're all gone. I'd also like to mention that the Red Hot Chili Peppers stink bigtime (even bigger time than usual at the Grammies, which I could've lived without seeing the last fifteen minutes of. When will they add "the hipness"?)
It's winter on Cape Cod. Go to sleep.
NEXT TIME (figure early April or thereabouts) ? the ALL-KELP OSCAR SPECIAL!!!
When I originally made up the name "Thurston Kelp" (I know you'll be interested in this!), I wanted to use "Thurston" because I thought it sounded British, but I was never really satisfied with it, and worried that it didn't sound British enough. Now that I'm Blair, though, my name sounds British as all get-out. Or at least the "Blair" part does. Now "Kelp" seems like the problem -it's so, mmmm... short. I may eventually have to take the whole thing in and have it hyphenated, once and for all.
But that's not your problem, or at least it hadn't been until recently! I'm also all excited about all the awards and the Superbowl and everything, even though some of them happened already, and I'm not sure which ones or when!
I was fortunate enough to take in the Superbowl (and, by the way, perhaps this is a good time to apologize for being so tardy lately with the damn kolumn, but I really have been so busy picking my name and everything. But I know, I was thinking about you guys all the time and how I must be disappointing you, or you may have been even concerned, thinking, oh! I've missed my deadline by almost three weeks, surely that's long even by my so-called standards, is there a substance problem with old Blair or what?)) (By the way, I also considered "Rusty", Rusty Kelp, but it didn't sound British enough, it sounded more like a burlesque MC. Of course the reason we got into this whole mess in the (first) place was because my original editor at the Cape Codder ((who shall remain nameless, at least until I remember his name, wait! -it was Karen! What a great name!))) who objected to my original (or, as I just typed, "orinal") pseudonym, R. Nalton Thruppy.))))) and, anyway, it was a pretty good game.
I particularly enjoyed when, early in the game, the Colts' kicker, Adam Vinatieri (until this year one of the Pats' biggest heroes), missed a field goal, and a jubilant roar went up in front of tv sets all over New England as spoiled, bitter Patriots fans celebrated his momentary failure and embarrassment. Rarely do you get to see so many revel so heartily in misery of such a tangential degree. If only he'd kept missing, northeast football fans would've been over the moon, overcome with joy that we might have finally traded one of our greats just prior to his disgrace instead of just after like usual.
As a person who always enjoys seeing rich people inconvenienced, I very much appreciated getting to see the millionaires collide in horrible, near-monsoon conditions -in other words, perfect football weather! I must say I was looking forward to an unsightly debacle at halftime, figuring Prince, who's only a little fella anyway and arguably past his prime, to be squashed flat by the torrential downpour; but what to my wondering eyes did appear but a near-perfect (after all, he did cover "Proud Mary", so let's not get carried away), seemingly effortless, entirely inspired show! Damn! What a guy!
And, sure, I guess a lot of papers probably got you this news faster, but I'll bet not in this kind of detail.
The Colts won by pretty much, probably about 36 to about 12 for the other team.
I'd like to thank my research team, but I don't have one. They're all gone. I'd also like to mention that the Red Hot Chili Peppers stink bigtime (even bigger time than usual at the Grammies, which I could've lived without seeing the last fifteen minutes of. When will they add "the hipness"?)
It's winter on Cape Cod. Go to sleep.
NEXT TIME (figure early April or thereabouts) ? the ALL-KELP OSCAR SPECIAL!!!
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