Say yeah yeah!: FELA! on Broadway

If you haven't already, go. Just go. FELA! doesn't so much follow a linear story line, but rather, aims, and succeeds, via musical osmosis, in bringing Fela Kuti's story, Lagos, Nigeria, The Shrine and Africa '70 (Antibalas) to life before your eyes. I had the extreme privilege of being seated second row, dead center, where I could feel the sweat of Kuti's Queens flying off their bodies, and feel the magnetism and insane charisma that Kevin Mambo brought to his role as the legendary band leader, activist, multi-instrumentalist and international bad boy. I had been waiting since 2008 to see this show, and man, was it worth the wait. If anybody reading this wants to go, let me know, I would be honored to accompany somebody on their first viewing. I don't even want to give much more away, I wouldn't be able to truly do the show justice; the songs ("Water No Get Enemy" a personal favorite of mine, was exceptionally wonderful), the dances (nothing short of electrifying and bone chilling) the visuals (the tiny theatre was transformed into The Shrine at its height) and the overall ambiance can't even be accurately conveyed via text. GO. NOW.

FELA! on Broadway
The Eugene O'Neill Theatre
230 West 49th Street

TDOS Obituaries: Teddy Pendergrass

After succumbing to a battle with colon cancer, soul master and legendary baritone Teddy "Teddy Bear" Pendergrass, died late last night in a hospital outside of his hometown, Philadelphia. He was only 59 and had managed to cheat death once before, surviving a paralyzing car accident in 1982 and successfully rebuilding his career, when people thought he would never sing again. After the jump, my favorite Teddy joint, from his Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes days.

The Obligatory Year End List, Two Day Old Style

It's mid January, so I know all of you out there are probably just clamoring for my year end list, right? Sure, we could do this type of thing at the actual end of the year, but we like to keep you on your toes. So here's what I was listening to, in no particular order.

No Kids, Come Into My House: a thousand spins in, I still have no idea what to make of this debut, but it's an interesting, shifty, compelling little record. Our designer and sometime contributor Kyle, who put me on to this LP, came closest to pinning it down: "A little baroque ballad to start, into some slightly spazzy pop, then something with an anemic Biggie beat, to some barbershop quartet and salsa piano later on." So, maybe that helps? Key tracks: "The Beaches Are Closed," "Bluster In The Air"

Oh No, Dr. No's Oxperiment: Turkish garage rock samples are turned into some of the best beats of the year, courtesy of Madlib's little brother. This got a bunch more exposure when Mos Def tapped some of the beats for The Ecstatic. Key tracks: "Heavy," "Come Back," "Ohhhhhh"

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, Know Better Learn Faster: Sad people dance, too. Key tracks: "Goodbye, Good Luck," "When We Swam"

Roseanne Cash, The List: straightforward covers album, ranging from the predictable to obscure, all perfectly produced by Cash's husband Jon Leventhal. It has a nice story behind it, to boot. Word is, Vol. 2 is on the way. Key tracks: "Miss the Mississippi and You," "Girl From the North Country," She's Got You"

Monsters of Folk, s/t: Not the all time classic I was hoping for, but put Mike Mogis, Conor Oberst, Yim Yames (f.k.a. Jim James, wtf) and M. Ward in a studio together and something worth listening will probably come out. These guys are the self appointed successors to the throne of Wilbury. Key tracks: "Magic Marker," "Whole Lotta Losin,'" "Losin Yo Head"

Mayer Hawthorne, A Strange Arrangement: He looks like a white boy wannabe, but this LP from Stones Throw has soul for real and it sounds like Hawthorne will be a heavy hitter in the soul revival movement. Key tracks: Key tracks: "Your Easy Lovin Ain't Pleasin Nothin," "The Ills," "Maybe So, Maybe No"

Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix: perfect pop tunes from the French outfit. Who doesn't love the satisfaction of a late career breakthrough? Key tracks: "Lisztomania," "Countdown (Sick For The Big Sun)"

Karen O and The Kids, Where The Wild Things Are: this one I had my doubts about, but Karen O and her indie star studded posse crafted a pitch perfect score for Spike Jonze's masterpiece. The cover of Daniel Johnston's "Worried Shoes" will get you every time, unless you have no pulse. Related: I still can't believe they let Jonze make this movie. Key Tracks: "Igloo," "Worried Shoes," "All Is Love"

The xx, xx: just like me in 2009, these kids sound totally bemused by their love lives. Sparse electronic backing (it kind of smacks of Postal Service in a good way, only moodier) and boy girl vocals. Cold weather music, if you ask me. A good counterpoint to the manic breakup rock of Los Campesinos!.

Various Artists, Dark Was the Night compilation: Sure, there's a bunch of skippable filler on this two disc Red Hot compilation helmed by the Dessner brothers (The National), but there's also a few artists quietly contributing some the best songs of their careers. Very heavy on collaborations and fairly obscure covers (Dap Kings play Shuggie Otis? Yes please). And the show at Radio City Music Hall was a highlight of the year if not decade. Key tracks: David Byrne + Dirty Projectors, "Knotty Pine," Feist + Ben Gibbard, "Train Song," The National, "So Far Around the Bend," The New Pornographers, "Hey Snow White," Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, "Inspiration Information"

You Should Be Here: Raphael Saadiq, Terminal 5, NYC, 12.4.09

Top ten personal epiphanies that occurred during last night's show (in no particular order):


10. This performance is the closest thing to a Motown revue I will ever witness, Cholly Atkins' routines, in the pocket drumming and immaculate salmon colored suits included

9. The subtle subconscious ramifications of an outfit change cannot be ignored, especially if said salmon colored suit is involved

8. Raphael Saadiq may just have a 100% flawless career, starting with his tenure playing bass for Prince and Sheila E. at the age of 17

7. I have not felt this hormonally jubilant since a Tyrese show at the Chicago House of Blues circa 1998

6. 43 is the new 23

5. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is sexier than rolled up shirt sleeves*

4. Fashion glasses don't bother me if they are replicas of David Ruffin's

3. I still wish Lucy Pearl would reunite

2. After all these years, "Anniversary" still makes my heart flutter

1. I don't care how many times I hear the line "I got more than just a big stick and some money" I still believe it is pure poetry

*with the exception of the shirt sleeves being pushed up in order to better play a bass, and play it well. Very well.

Idolator Takes Another Turn

Our favorite music blogger Maura has been ousted by parent company Buzznet, replaced at Idolator by two new writers who I will not try to be too hard on. Daily Swarm has all the details, and you can read Maura's goodbye post here.

From the looks of it, a high quality music blog has been replaced by yet another completely mediocre music blog. Too bad. Not a huge surprise--the blog has been bought and sold and had its staff cut a number of times since its inception. We'll keep an eye out for where Maura takes her music writing after this.

Meet Idolator's New Editors [daily swarm]
It's Time (For Me) To Say Goodbye [idolator]

Amerie's In Love & War: Womp & Womp

Oh, Amerie. I waited for this. I was excited. I thought, and reasonably so, that this new album would be a continuation of Because I Love It, your best, and most elusive release (it didn't even drop in the States and was basically unreleased elsewhere since there was no press or promo done for it). I assumed it would be filled with all the things that make me love you so much: blaring horns, songs that Beyoncé probably should have done in 2003, a sassy exuberance that can really only come from a person when they genuinely love the music they are making (have you heard the unrelenting joy she exudes on Because I Love It's Sam and Dave sampling jam "Gotta Work"? Fucking contagious) and a kind of underdog mentality that stems from the fact that she never really became a public favorite. But no.

Maybe it was the move to Def Jam. Maybe it was the reuniting with longtime producer Rich Harrison, who helped define her sound but was absent from her last album, and apparently for the best. Or maybe, in an effort to effectively recycle elements of Because, she managed to dilute its essence into an album that only offers two stand out tracks (lead single "Why R U" and the stellar "More Than Love" which has her and Fabulous beefing over a lush and punchy Kool and the Gang riff).

The first half is upbeat and sort of a lazy version of what it should be, while the second half is syrupy and very I Am Sasha Fierce. Did people at her new label tell her to go more mainstream? To tone down the raw funk and soul that defined her style of R&B? To essentially, dumb it down? Because what we are left with here is an album that doesn't sound at all like Amerie. Redoing Mint Condition's "Pretty Brown Eyes" with Trey Songz? Employing the use of Lil' Wayne? Synth lines? Power ballads? What the fuck. Even the cover art is uninspired.

I'm going to go listen to "1 Thing" on repeat.

Ghostface Stories

Last year we showed you this for Halloween. This year, something even better, courtesy of Jimmy Kimmel via the Daily Swarm. I present to you: Ghost Stories with Ghostface Killah.


So, that makes about as much sense as I expected. Shout to Midget Kiss.

WATCH: Ghost Stories with Ghostface Killah [daily swarm]

Retire for Real: The Trouble with Jay-Z

Jay-Z said this to NYMag's Vulture blog on the subject of his "Death of Autotune" song:

I really just wanted to send a message to rap; I didn’t know it’d be a cultural dispute. I really wanted to have the conversation, like “are we just going to sound like each other? Everyone’s going to sound the same? That’s what we’re gonna do? Don’t ya’ll know this is dangerous? And this is just how rock and roll got pushed from the forefront?” We did this to rock and roll. Everyone was doing the hair-band thing on MTV with the tight pants. They all had the big hair, just different colored tights. It just became about more of a look and a sound than the emotion of the music. And that’s what hip-hop’s becoming. It’s losing the emotion — you can’t have emotion in the robotic voice. I can’t feel anything! And then everyone sounds the same. I really wanted to have the conversation amongst us. And it went outside the culture.

Jay? You can't have it both ways. Blueprint 3--the album you seem to think really broke free of the hip hop pack--would be the most tired thing you've released to date, had you not also released Kingdom Come and American Gangster. And it's not exactly high on emotional expression. Your words and your actions are completely at odds with one another. It's going to take a LOT more than eschewing heavy autotune use in order to breathe life back into hip hop. Maybe you gave a damn about the music contained on BP3, but it certainly didn't sound like it. Sure, "Empire State of Mind" is a pretty good track, but it doesn't sound like anything that couldn't have come out in 2003 (and while we're on the subject, it would have been among the weakest tracks you did release in that year). If you want to keep making music this boring, that's fine. You're way past the Three Classic Album Rule. But please, stop acting like you're here to save us.

Now, if you've read this blog before, you might know a bit about my feelings on the state of hip hop: that it's tired, it's boring, it's just one stop short of dead. Everyone's afraid to try something new, and any feeble attempt to do so gets so chopped up by meddling hands that it ends up a sad neutered excuse for a record. And that's just for the artists who care, which most of them don't seem to. Call me cranky, but I defy you to come up with a compelling argument to the contrary. The best I can do these days seems to be Kid Cudi, and again, that record came out completely lopsided (I still like it a lot more than anything on BP3).

The only silver lining that I could possibly conceive of here is right in line with Jay-Z's rock music/hair metal analogy: the revitalization that rock music saw in the days during and after the hair metal craze was a direct result of said craze; four kids in Forest Hills needed to be bored to death by rock radio before they could bring it back to life as The Ramones (and that's just one example). So here's hoping that Jay can move along the utter stagnation of hip hop to the point that some kid, somewhere, gets fed up and does something completely insane, original, interesting, vital, and fun. Or any of the above. If they're out there and you know it, let me know where I can hear it in the comments.

Jay-Z on DJ Hero, 'D.O.A.,' and His Future Career As a Bar Mitzvah Performer [vulture blog]

That Really Was It: Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT

A lot has been said about Michael Jackson's THIS IS IT: Father of the year Joe Jackson claims that body doubles were used, his sister LaToya says that Michael would be horrified by the film's release; as a perfectionist, he wouldn't want fans to see him not giving his all, even in a rehearsal. Expectations were high for fans, especially for those who were supposed to see the concert, and many critics were skeptical. After all, Jackson needed this money. These dates were a way to help with his monstrous debt. And since he is one of the most beloved performers of all time, it would be easy, and not surprising at all, for him to simply phone in 50 shows and leave at least a few people satisfied, just happy to catch a glimpse of his former glory.

Well, after seeing the premiering 11:55pm show in Brooklyn last night with my brother, I can tell you this: The King of Pop still had a little fight left in him.

To be honest, I bought these tickets the day they were released a month ago in the hopes that the film would shed some subversive light on his health pre-death. Maybe unintentionally show Michael in a Demerol induced haze, stumbling through rehearsals. Perhaps prove to the world that he was in absolutely no condition to fulfill those 50 planned dates at the O2 arena in London anyway. I am not particularly proud of my initial interest in the documentary, but like most people, I am not completely immune to scandal consciously and unconsciously forming my opinions of someone I have never even met. I was looking for sensationalism. I will admit that. I was looking for a few bittersweet laughs at a fallen legend's expense. I will admit that too. But I got the complete opposite. And I am impressed.

This wasn't funny. Or fucked up. It wasn't even sad, in a pathetic sense or otherwise. Parts of it dripped with melodrama, but that was no surprise, his tastes often lead to that. Really, it was just fascinating. It basically was a run through of the concert that never was, about almost 2 hours of him just planning, singing, dancing and rehearsing his way through the elaborate set. There were explosions, a Swarovski embellished "Billie Jean" costume partially developed by scientists in the Netherlands, that was so bright you needed sunglasses to see it up close (not joking), aerialists hanging from chandeliers, the world's luckiest dancers (one of the best scenes was footage from the auditions held for back up dancers, all of them crying with joy at the prospect of dancing not with, but for the King), amazing musicianship (his female guitarist was particularly excellent, and the band was fantastic) and tons of insane footage that was meant to be projected over the stage for pretty much each song, basically serving as mini music videos, even though the majority of said songs already have pretty amazing music videos to begin with (the "Thriller" one, although filled with great makeup, costumes and special effects, was no match for John Landis' original and the video footage for "Earth Song" had me checking the time a lot).

It started with "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and ended with "Man in the Mirror," and in between there was a Jackson 5 medley (complete with an exact replica of The Jackson 5 Show set, which was my favorite part), a reinterpretation of Gilda set to "Smooth Criminal" which via green screen had Jackson spliced into the night club setting with Rita Hayworth, a Chicago-esque performance of "The Way You Make Me Feel," and the whole time, Michael's immaculate attention to detail. Whether he was schooling (soft spokenly and politely of course) his musical director for not playing the EXACT key used on the original "The Way You Make Me Feel" record for the intro of the song, chastising his band for not letting the bass "simmer" enough, or stopping a number because the mix sounded like a "fist was being pushed through" his ear, he was completely at the helm. His voice, is still phenomenal, even if he wasn't going full throttle on each song (although he did a lot and during his duet with back up singer Judith on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" he got carried away in the moment and really let loose, quite beautifully, and then told her teasingly it was "OK for you to do that, but I need to conserve MY voice").

Joe Jackson, once again, can die in a fire; those were 110% Jackson's moves, start to finish. He didn't miss a beat, he just moved a few seconds slower than normal, partially because it was rehearsal and a lot of sound check stuff, and of course partially due to health, but nevertheless: he not only kept up with his lithe dancers, he led them. This was no walk through. He jumped around, threw himself on the ground, crotch grabbed, air humped, moonwalked, "Thrillered," Jackson 5 "rolled" (you know, the classic hand/arm roll the boys did all in a line with the two-step) and maintained great measure in his singing the whole time. He made perfect sense every time he spoke, even if he used ridiculous metaphors and passively aggressively told everyone when they messed up that he was correcting them with "L-O-V-E" and even though he seemed exhausted, was shockingly alert.

I have always said that Michael, even as a child, looked the most comfortable while singing and dancing. All other times, he seemed uncomfortable in his later giant and skeletal frame, nervously waving, shyly smiling. This film solidified that. His element, is performing. Watching him lead rehearsals was like watching someone come back to life. I wasn't even paying attention to his looks; they didn't matter. His hair, his skin, his nose, none of those heavily criticized things were an issue. I mean, I am no fool. I know they showed the best days of rehearsals. I know things were edited, heavily. I know he wasn't always that lucid. But I also know what I saw and I know that I would have loved to see the final outcome. There was no scandal. No gossip. No circus show (other than the one on stage). No law suits. Just a legend who quietly was building his swan song, proving that even though his records weren't what they once were, his natural gift for entertaining, immaculately and joyously, had never left.

Uh...thanks?

One of our favorite blogs is Idolator. They consistently bring thought provoking commentary to some of the most ridiculous happenings in the world of popular and independent music, and for that, we thank them.

Currently, they're counting down the fifty worst songs of the '00s. It's a dirty job, but... well, actually no one had to do it but I'm glad the Idolator crew has taken to it. Because it gives us great harsh lines like the following:

This is a “collaboration” like leprosy is a collaboration with your skin, with Wu-Tang’s involvement little more than their collecting royalties on a copy of Wu-Tang Forever some kid probably sold to a CD Warehouse in 1998. So basically you have 30 seconds of a Wu-Tang record you already own, a full-on pause, and then a really fucking loud Ozzy and Tony Iommi playing a completely dogshit moronic chorus. And then the Wu record again, but really quietly and sadly just playing by itself with an out-of-tune Cypress Hill noises on top of it. Loud rocks!

Doesn't matter what song they're talking about (it's some kind of horrible Ozzy/Wu-Tang collabo), but these are still worth a read.

F2K: Idolator Counts Down The 50 Worst Songs Of The ’00s, One By Ear-Splitting One [idolator]