pj del's Posts


pj del's Photo I am a volunteer KDHX writer. I am also a pamphleteer.

Latest Playlist


Bill Cosby brings his timeless comedy to the Fox

Bill Cosby

commons.wikimedia.org

On the back of Bill Cosby’s 1963 debut album, Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow…Right!, producer Allan Sherman wrote, “Bill Cosby, if I am any judge of talent, will keep coming up with fresh, new material and will grow everyday in stature and importance on the American comedy scene.”

And the prophecy proved true. From 1965 to 1970, Bill Cosby earned the Grammy for Best Comedy Performance (Album) — six years in a row.

Bill Cosby, like Bill Russell with the Boston Celtics, created a dynasty in the 1960s likely never to be duplicated again. And yet, for all his accomplishments, when Cosby comes up in conversation, someone in my generation will inevitably imitate him by stumbling over the words: “jello-pudding-pop.”

It feels like flattery gone awry.

Oh well. Jerry Seinfeld receives the same vocal parody, and these two men created the most successful television shows spanning two decades — kicking ass with clean comedy and white sneakers.

Very few artists are genuine shift-shapers, and Cosby is one: comedian, writer, actor, producer, activist and educator. The time you first discovered Cosby will dictate your Rorschach ink blot test, but history will always remind us that his star rose doing stand up.

Modern American stand up comedy rests on four iconic pillars: Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby, of which only one can be arbitrarily described as possessing “clean” material — if that means anything to you. And while much of American culture in the middle of the 20th century was characterized by free love, race riots and protest, Bill Cosby traveled down a different road of self-expression, marked not by the time he lived in, but by being timeless.

Bill Cosby will be performing at the Fabulous Fox Theater on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 3 p.m.

Posted by | September 12, 2010 | Culture, Local | Comment 

The White Stripes: Pretty good looking (for a rock doc)

Under Great White Northern Lights

The Showtime debut of Under Great White Northern Lights, a music documentary about the White Stripes touring small provinces in Canada, performing impromptu shows and digging local culture, requires a few words.

The White Stripes have a history of success with moving pictures, notably working with French film director Michel Gondry on music videos — yeah, that one with the legos.

Jack White has continuously expressed passion and preference for outdated technologies like the CD and vinyl. One reason White founded Third Man Records was to bring an “aesthetic back into the record business.” The tagline for Third Man Records: Your Turntable’s Not Dead. So, it’s no surprise the band produced a music documentary, another seemingly antiquated music art form. The genre has limited notoriety, with a few exceptions:

Emmet Malloy’s direction on Under Great White Northern Lights deserves the attention of anyone who enjoys music television. He successfully and artistically translates the simultaneously grandiose and minimalistic identity of the White Stripes onto film.

“Don’t waste your time,” a friend advised. “It’s no Gimme Shelter.”

I’m not quite sure if this doc measures up to the best in its genre, but maybe we use that measurement too often for this genre. We don’t necessarily compare every drama to The Godfather.

I’d suggest enjoying UGWNL the same way my friend Jackie uses Zeppelin’s How the West Was Won — great background entertainment during a small shindig.

UGWNL made the independent film festival tour awhile back, and the Canadian experiment recently morphed into the UGWNL box set, which includes (among other things):

The UGWNL box set is an extension of Jack White’s belief that music is predestined to be tangible — a turntable, a CD, anything. It’s also about the idea that it’s more meaningful to roll into Euclid Records than double click “Are you sure you want to buy…?”

Vintage Vinyl is a building block of culture. Amazon.com is not.

I’d reference Meg here, but in the film she’s like De Stijl’s truth — doesn’t make a noise.

Watching hazy clips of Hendrix or Jefferson Airplane at the Monterey Pop Festival, a majority of my generation incredulously ponders, “Can you imagine what it would have been like to be there?” And watching UGWNL, you’ll get a similar feeling that you missed out.

The irony of the box set is that very few brick and mortar stores will likely carry such a rare and expensive product. Or, as you might hear it: “We just ran out.” In the meantime, catch the doc on Showtime, where it comfortably rests “on demand,” a few clicks away.

Posted by | September 3, 2010 | Culture, Music | Comment 

LouFest 2010 Preview: Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus

myspace.com/titusandronicus

The Monitor by Titus Andronicus: The Concept Album We Needed

My friend Charlie recommended Titus Andronicus to me. He is a 26-year-old intellectual, although in hipster fashion would likely refute the moniker. He’s preachy, kind of like everyone else about my age. Emblematic of my generation, Charlie believes voting is meaningless because campaign finance laws make the power of an individual’s voice worthless. And when challenged by his father that, “You don’t have a right to complain unless you vote,” he responded, “Who cares anyway?”

Fueled by current economic turmoil and a divisive political landscape, the aptitude to question everything intensifies, and then drifts away into nothingness.

Enter: Titus Andronicus. Hailing from Glen Rock, N.J. the quintet has captured the existential enjoyment of our angst with lyrics like “It’s all right the way you piss and moan.” Ah, the confirmation we all thought we didn’t need, but rejoice in hearing.

Thomas Hobbes famously wrote, “Life is short, brutish and nasty.” Titus Andronicus could deliver that line with a fist pump.

The band is named after a lesser known Shakespearean tragedy. I can’t tell if the allusion carries profound meaning, or if the band randomly spotted Bill’s old transcript in an independent bookstore around the corner from me and dug how the six syllables flowed. Either way, who cares? It sticks.

The band has been touring our side of the equator promoting their latest album, The Monitor. Listening to The Monitor is like having a fun, heated debate with close friends that ends with someone saying, “You’re all crazy, now let’s go grab a beer.”

Alas, this is a concept album in the digital age where everything is reduced to bits. How perfectly antithetical! The album borrows its name from a Civil War battleship, but themes present in The Monitor are more personal than political. Weaving stories about a war in the 19th century with 21st century torment about falling short of personal actualization is difficult enough to explain, let alone pull off artistically. But the band has managed to fuse rock with the tragedy of America’s past: “If I go in on a donkey, let me go out on a gurney.”

Lead singer Patrick Stickles screams as if every word actually matters, and the band backs up his vocal rage alternating between chaotic, lo-fi punk and simplistic Springsteen anthems.

“The enemy is everywhere” is a theme laced throughout the album. It speaks more to our nature and how much easier it is to personify a demon outside of ourselves rather than focus on what’s wrong introspectively. It’s like having twenty bad roommates over years of apartment sharing without once thinking maybe I am the problem?

We are, after all, flawed intellectuals, and kind of preachy from time to time.


Titus Andronicus performs at 4 p.m. on Saturday, August 28 at LouFest. 88.1 KDHX is a media sponsor of LouFest.

Titus Andonicus: Live at KDHX 2/4/09

This div will be replaced

Posted by | August 19, 2010 | Concerts, Music | Comment 

← Previous Page