I AM THE KING

The Birthday Party - Junkyard Live on Gotterdamerung (1982)

...and you thought Marvin Gaye made sexy musics, DAMN

MY LOVELY ELIZABETH

S.E. Rogie - My Lovely Elizabeth

SO, I decided to stay focused on African music for another post.

S.E. Rogie, was a Palm Wine guitarist from Sierra Leone in West Africa. Palm Wine music, native to Western Africa is heavily influenced by Calypso. It is named after the fermented palm oil drink that the guitarists would drink when they would play together.

This is a pretty heavy performance. The guitar playing is absolutely beautiful. The vocal performance is equally stunning, Rogie's voice is very expressive and his delivery really helps to tell the story behind this song. It seems like while playing this song, he experiences the events he recounts in the introduction all over again. Rogie wrote and sang in four languages. I can't tell what language he is singing in for this performance, but that section of the song impresses me the most. I really love S.E. Rogie, Its a shame recordings of his music are so hard to come by.

BEST MUSIC EVER

I know nothing about these videos. I don't know who the performer is, I don't know what style of music this is. I don't speak Arabic, so I can't really search for any more information. All I know is that the performance in these videos completely blows my mind.

The keyboard player is a very engaging performer. At times he plays the keyboard more like a drum than a key instrument. The melodies are repetitive and almost trance-like. Occasionally there is a little bouncy keyboard part that jumps in at times and its absolutely perfect. I'm not sure if the vocals are run through effects or if it is just the echo from the PA, but the singing in the first video is spacey and delayed. It almost sounds like a transmission from another planet.

The whole crowd dynamic is also really fascinating. There really is no barrier between audience and performer. In the second video, you can hear people in the audience singing along with the keyboardist. They effectively become part of the band. This type of relationship to the audience is something we in the United States aren't very accustomed to. Call and response vocals are typical to many types of African music performances. It isn't unusual to hear performers and the audience trade off lines all the time.


This sharply dressed keyboardist plays like a coked out, Sudanese Stevie Wonder. Incredible.

I wish the shows I went to here in the US were half this energetic.

DADDY KEWL

Boney M - Daddy Cool.

Man, I can't decide where to start with this one. Boney M are a German disco group that became pretty popular in the early 70s. I'm going to guess it had something to do with their album art.
The dancing in this video is absolutely manic. I've never seen anything like it. Also, I've heard women fake orgasms in songs before but I've never seen it done live. The effect is quite... unsettling. The song is quite catchy. The lyrics are simple weird, but definitely infectious as far as E.S.L. lyrics go. Its a fun song. I wish more musicians made music like this today. Not necessarily disco pop songs, but songs that are meant to be fun. GOOD songs that, although vapid, are a little weird, well written, fun and make you wanna shake your culo.

Uh, they have a myspace, too?
http://www.myspace.com/boneyboney

TO PARTER

I love the Butthole Surfers.



Butthole Surfers were notorious for two things; their energetic, chaotic live show and the copious amounts of psychedelic drugs they ingested. This 1984 performance on a New York city public access station successfully showcases the band's acid drenched, manic performance style. The music is surprisingly coherent, despite Gibby and Paul both clearly being completely out of it. Paul's facial expressions are the highlight of this performance for me. His mannerisms remind me of a rabid animal lurching around or a hobo trying to dance at the peak of a six month long binge.







Butthole Surfers - Live on the Scott and Gary Show

After this performance, the band is interviewed by Scott (of the Scott and Gary Show,) but its hardly an interview at all. Paul repeatedly gets up, goes to his guitar, plays a note, sets it down and then returns to his seat next to Scott, putting his arm around him affectionately while the whole time, Gibby is slowly but surely disrobing. This "interview" really sums up the Butthole Surfers' unparalleled depravity. These guys (and girl) were making truly unique music in a truly unique manner in the early and mid 80s. Unfortunately, like all train wrecks, the rubble is eventually cleared away and the spectacle dissapates. Everyone knows the 1996 hit single "Pepper," it doesn't hold a candle to the unbridled creative insanity that the band exhibited in the early-mid 1980s.

Addendum: Eyeball Studies does not support or condone drug use.

BATMAN KISSES A SEAL

Kiss From a Rose by Seal

I don't know who the guy was that decided that Batman Forever needed a heartfelt ballad for a theme song, but dear lord, I hope he got a promotion. I guess during the 90s it was a trend for big blockbuster movies to have a hit song associated with them. If we look back there are a few glaring examples, Will Smith's dance video for Men in Black, Aerosmith and Armageddon, Puff Daddy butchering Led Zeppelin in Godzilla, Celine Dion's vomit inducing song for Titanic, you get the picture.

Now, I was pretty young when Batman Forever was released, but I distinctly remember listening to this song on the radio with my parents and telling them that it was my favorite song. What was it about this song that made me adore it so much as a child? Probably the same things that keep me coming back to this video today! Could the appeal lie in Seal in all his ebony, mysterious glory singing in front of the bat signal? Maybe its the juxtaposition of Seal's austere, emotive delivery and clips from Joel Schumacher's giant shit-stain on the Batman franchise. Maybe I'm just attracted to Seal, who knows.

OBEY YAHWEH

This is one of the most bizarre and most mysterious video clips I have ever come across. It also happens to be my favorite. The only information known about this woman is her name: Reverend Alicia. This has been blogged about plenty of times before, its a pretty popular video but I just want to step back and take a look at this one more time from a different perspective. Let's try to figure out what exactly is going on here.

Clearly this video has some sort of religious motivation, but who is the audience? What is the purpose of this quirky, psychedelic song and dance (if you can even call it a dance) number. Is Reverend Alicia trying to proselytize on a public access TV channel? Is this some type of televised church service? Where did this video even come from initially? It appears to be ripped from a slightly warped VHS tape, but who was the first person to upload this video to the internet? Is there anyone out there who can reveal the TRUTH behind this song and Reverend Alicia? The video seems to get more confusing and frustrating the more you think about it. Maybe this clip is one of those things that we are just not meant to understand at all. Maybe we should just OBEY and TRUST Yahweh and not ask so many questions.

BLOGPOST

I decided to start a blog today. While I was on my way to work this morning, I started thinking about youtube and all of the strange, bizarre, unexplained and out-of-context videos that people have uploaded over the past few years. I've recently found myself wasting far too much time sifting through these weird videos and enjoying myself far too much. I decided that it may make my weird video obsession less of a waste of time if I shared these videos with other people.

SO HERE'S THE CONCEPT:

For each post, I'm going to embed ONE music video from youtube and then post a paragraph or so about why I find it to be so intriguing. The videos may be WEIRD, they may be AWESOME or they may just be so terrible they're irrestible, the only criteria is that they be fascinating in some way or another. If you come across something that you think I may enjoy, send it my way. Hopefully this blog will work two ways. PEACE.