Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand
My 30 for 30 Project of video cover songs from each year of my life resumes tomorrow! I’ve been holed up in the studio all day working on songs, and I can say without exaggeration that this week will feature some of my favorite songs and most unusual performances – ever. For example…
Come on, just try to tell me you aren’t wondering what that ridiculousness is about.
Point your browser at me tomorrow afternoon at 12:30 ET to see what I have in store from 1988.
I hope you enjoyed the first week of 30 for 30 Project, my cover-song retrospective of my first 30 years of life! If you’ve missed the songs so far, they were:
My Brown Bag Demos, Vol. 1 contains 11 acoustic originals and 1 Madonna ballad, all for the low price of FREE.
1981: “Physical” – Olivia Newton John
1982: “Back on the Chain Gang” – The Pretenders
1983: “Hungry Like the Wolf” – Duran Duran
1984: “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” – Wham!
1985: “How Will I Know” – Whitney Houston
1986: “You Can Call Me Al” – Paul Simon
1987: “Alone” – Heart
As mentioned in my introductory post, my intent was never for 30 for 30 to be a daily project. Now that the shock and awe of the first seven songs is through I’m going to take a few days off to rest my voice and work up the arrangements that will take us through the middle of the 90s.
In the meantime, there is plenty more music by me on the web to hear! Download my 2010 demo record for free, watch a concert from my band Arcati Crisis before you buy tickets for our 9/24 full-band show at the Tin Angel, or check out a song I wrote for Eric Smith‘s novel that garnered coverage in the new issue of Jump Philly.
I already have my 1988 and ’89 tunes picked out, but past that it’s open road! What would you like to hear me cover from the first half the 90s? Would you prefer I stick with major hits everyone has heard, or go for some slightly more obscure tunes? Should I stick with pop, or make the jump to modern rock?
Allow me to explain how Heart’s 80’s power-ballad “Alone” is the best possible illustration of why this project is such a positive endeavor for me.
Heart is the combination of Ann and Nancy Wilson, and their first two LPs – Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen – are solid gold in my book. Yet, in the early 80s the group faltered with two poorly-received albums, and seemed to be headed for a fade out.
Then they released their biggest hit to date – 1985’s self-titled Heart, and followed it up with the strong Bad Animals in 1987.
What changed? A quick look at the liner notes will tell you. The two lesser successes were written entirely by the Wilsons. The two hits include more outside co-writers, and some songs not written by the band.
Case and point: “Alone” is Heart’s biggest hit, and it was written by Tom Kelly & Billy Steinberg – the major songwriting guns responsible for “Like a Virgin,” “True Colors,” “So Emotional,” and “Eternal Flame,” among other hits.
(Today’s video features special guest-star E, who can be heard elsewhere as the lead singer of Filmstar, because I could not bear to play this song sans its signature harmony. You can see us both play as Filmstar on Thursday night at North Star Bar around 9:45p, or for free on October 15 at Fergies @ 10pm). [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1987: “Alone” – Heart
Here is my beef with music made for kids: it is usually unnecessary.
We’ve established I was obsessed with “Thriller” at three and tumbling 4 ya at four. And, as the article about me in the new issue of Jump Philly points out, I was jamming out to Jem in the back seat at five – but Jem wasn’t exactly The Wiggles, if you catch my drift. It was more like Katy Perry, sans the self-hatred and misogyny.
Case and point: “You Can Call Me Al,” from Paul Simon’s seminal Graceland. As I child I was obsessed with it, as well as with “Me & Julio” from his debut.
The song is a little silly and repetitive. It has lyrics like “roly-poly little bat-faced girl” that delighted me as a child. It also told a story, with its setting painted in vibrant swaths of words … some of them big words, like “redemption,” “allegations,” and “architecture.”
I say, who needs Kidz Bop when you have Paul Simon?
(I was in a real crisis on my 1986 pick, as both my alternates were pretty difficult tunes that I’d rather track against a click (and thus remain top secret). Luckily, I realized “Al” saw its original release from Graceland in ’86, even though it primarily charted in 1987. Ass = saved.)
As a child I was of the firm belief that Whitney Houston was boring grown-up music because of the cover of her eponymous debut LP.
I liked it less than broccoli, and I think it’s easy to see why. It’s just a horrific album cover, and it screams “I am an adult album of blah-d-blah ballads about loving and kissing.”
As I kid I was all about romancing, but I had no interest in slow-dancing.
That LP of ballads did have one killer pop song on it, which is maybe how I got to know the album cover so well. The song? “How Will I Know.”
Whitney Houston is a rare artist that is all things to all people, and after her first album her image began to reflect that more clearly. She’s a peerless balladeer. She has a catalog of R&B standards. She sings exuberant, gospel-tinged dance/pop songs.
Even with her relatively meager catalog of LPs over the past 25 years, I don’t think it would be a stretch to affix the Greatest of All Time title to her name (save for perhaps her sad decline in the past decade). [Read more…] about 30 for 30 Project, 1985: “How Will I Know” – Whitney Houston