EDDIE (VO): "Oh, right...you're really into 50s pop, bubblegum and all that!"
MILT: "Yeah, he was a little funny. I like his song, 'Hard headed Woman.' That first line cracks me up: 'Hard headed Woman/ Head like a rock/ Makes a man go crazy/ All around the block.' No wait a minute, that's not it. Aw, I'd have to look it up."
EDDIE (VO): "What about The Beatles and the Stones? Mick Jagger had funny lips!"
MILT: "Weeeeell, funny lips can only take you so far. After the Beatles everything got too political, too...druggy. I don't like music that you have to get stoned to listen to."
EDDIE (VO): "Maybe you're on to something. There was a lot of funny music in the 50s and early sixties, then in the mid sixties it suddenly went away."
MILT: "Yeah, funny music like The Coasters', 'Smokey Joe's Cafe!' A customer comes into Smokey Joe's and Smokey's girl starts flirting with him. Smokey lays down the law...'Stop lookin' at my woman/You better eat up all your beans boy, and get on out!' Wow, there's so much gritty atmosphere and humor in a song like that."
EDDIE (VO): "What happened to funny music? Why did things change?"
MILT: "Interesting question! I remember reading something about it at the time."
MILT: "The radio stations got cold feet. Even though the funny records were selling well, they thought of those songs as one joke wonders. They thought the public would eventually get tired of them, and they were looking for an excuse to bail."
EDDIE (VO): "Holy Mackerel! That sounds plausible. Imagine a whole art form going down in flames because of the timidity of a few Nervous Nellies. "
MILT: "That's okay. I got my 45 of 'Down in Mexico,' so I'm happy!"
12 comments:
The Urinals are a very funny band, Eddy, check out their protopunk classic, "I'm a bug"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUFcGGn8rw8
Might I recommend you check out the Red Elvises, They're a band that has a lot of influences from the period that you and Milt are discussing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hS5jEbr_bYk
They also toss in some influences from traditional Russian music and other bits of European folk.
You and Milt really nailed it on this one, Eddie
In the mid-60s, The music of the Beatles became more experiential and thoughtful, in part doubtlessly due to the influence of drugs. I feel like the insights that many of these songs offer are in themselves very valid, but this gave way to the entire popular music industry starting to take itself too seriously, to eventually get lost into pure pretentiousness with the likes of Revolution 9, which is really just little more than a hodgepodge of meaningless, self-indulgent nonsense. The Stones I can see more humor in. Heck, "Their Satanic Majesties Request" becomes downright hilarious when it's looked at as a kind of earnest attempt by a rock band to superficially parallel Sgt. Pepper and the psychedelia of 1967
But I digress, The Beatles did have "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" Which is a lot of fun, but still a bit pretentious, and certainly not in the same unabashed, down-to-earth spirit of something you might've heard on the radio four years previously
For those craving novelty and comic music, Dr. Demento is still out there, alive, kicking and streaming!
Funny Rock & Roll didn't go away. There have been novelty/comedic hits just about every year since the Beatles hit the scene. You can debate the quality of these songs, but they're there.
Quality humorous bands are out there. You just have to venture, only slightly, off the beaten path. Prince has some really funny tunes and he was and kinda is still a huge star. Flight of the Conchords and Tenacious D are still making comedy rock songs. Ween is funny in my opinion. Beck is funny too.
There's also this little gem of an album, California by Mr. Bungle, which I can't recommend enough. I think it's superb musically and funny in a subtle way, but it's not super accessible. A little patience will be rewarded though.
Just wondering what you think of Weird Al Yankovic. He's not rock & roll, although he does funny songs.
I think John did a music video for him once.
I just love these photo stories.
Rock never stopped being funny, it just aqcuired a fucking sick sense of humour to match the insane times. Zappa could be hilarious if you were willing to accept the idea that the joke might just be (or is blatantly obviously) on you. Glam is near-constantly funny in its mix of absurd personalities, sick irony and furious theatrical energy. (Ian Hunter's vocals on Mott The Hoople's "Marionette" still kill me every time - "oh dear, these chains are so tight..." They also recorded a song called "I Wish I Was Your Mother".) Harry Nilsson, Todd Rundgren, The Tubes, Randy Newman and Warren Zevon were all alternately slick, sly and half-insane masters of situational irony, introspection abruptly turned on its head, sudden blasts of ham-fisted rawk cheese arriving at breathtakingly inappropriate moments, etc, etc, etc. But no album I've ever encountered is as stubborly impossible to listen to with a straight face as Eno's "Here Come The Warm Jets", from 1974. It is the closest thing to music sounding the way Ren & Stimpy looks -staggeringly absurd, grotesquely exaggerated yet inexplicably adorable, crawling with weird, scarily persuasive atmostphere and utterly addictive precisely BECAUSE it gives you a massive, glorious headache to try and take in all at once. There is literally no right time to listen to it - only more or less entertainingly wrong times. Oh yeah, and don't forget THE BONZO DOG DOO-DAH BAND!!! Viv Stanshall was physically incapable of doing or saying anything that wasn't hilarious. "And to my left, looking most relaxed, Adolph Hitler on vibes! *short vibes solo* Nice!"
Oh, and then there's THIS GUY.
....and can't forget Kali's favorites, DEVO! Again, fucked-up, horrifying, depressing ideas made hilarious by pushing them to their logical extremes. Not for everone (in spite of what their last album would have you believe)...
Rock & roll might never have crossed over to the mainstream if it hadn't been for Lieber & Stoller. They wrote almost all the funny rock&roll from that period. During the Civil Rights Era, musicians started writing their own stuff. Songwriting got all personal & the humor turned subversive & ironic.
Jeff, Jules, Adam, Zoran: Thanks for the links! It'll take me a couple of days to get to them, but I won't forget!
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