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| When
members of an ethnic community lampoon themselves or play
upon the stereotypes given them by outsiders, is it proper
for outsiders to laugh or play along? And how dangerous can
it be for those in the ethnic community in question to give
everyone else fodder for their possible misconceptions? |
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| You
are forgiven for thinking the above hypotheticals were directed
at today's commercial hip-hop and its often derogatory assumptions
about African-Americans of both genders. |
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| Psych! |
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| The
topic at hand is Jewface (Reboot Stereophonic), and
its topic is the depictions of Hebrew-Americans on
wax cylinders and 10-inch 78 RPM records from the 1900s-1920s.
Sixteen such curiosities are collected, here. |
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Skinflintedness,
prominent probosces, cultural juxtapositions, overbearing
mothers, kohser food. Everything that, today, might raise
the hackles of the National Alliance was taken in stride
by a people secure in their assimilation a couple of generations
into their American experience. And don't count Gentiles
responsible. Writers and performers renowned for their work
beyond the novelties found here—such as Irving
Berlin and Fanny Brice—were
plying their talents with tongues distending their cheeks
quite far, no doubt.
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| Compilations
like Jewface remind us how far we've come as a society.
And how far we, perhaps, don't need to go. Jewish-American
rappers, from The Beastie Boys
to Smooth-E, kid their background.
Stand-up comics, including Lewis Black,
Jonathan Katz, and Jon
Stewart, rely on their ethnicity for some yuks;
and it's not as though they want only their fans who've undergone
bar- or bat mitzahs to laugh along. The hyphens between [insert
ethnic origins, here] and "American" dissolve as
we can all share the humor of each other's ubringing and heritage. |
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| Digital
reproduction from the antique source materials is most stellar,
but the few bumps and stretches of scratches add the character
that you'd likely have to pay through any given orifice to
secure in their original form. Liner notes nicely set historical
perspective against cheekiness. |
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| I
shan't encourage you to use it to address a friend on the
way to or from synogogue in like fashion, but...Yay for Jewface!
(learn
more) |
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| Sometimes
a guy in my position (that being an internationally-read,
underpaid pop music critic out to avoid the herd mentality
tendencies certain to be encountered among his elite ilk)
happens upon an act to which—wouldn't it figure?—the
herd also flocks. |
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| But
the herd is pretty well right about young Englishwoman LILY
ALLEN. Like The Kinks,
The Jam, and an artist to whom
Allen's sometimes compared—Mike
"The Streets" Skinner, her artistry might
be so Anglophilic as to avoid overseas crossover of greater
proportion (although MTV and certain press have gone to bat
for her admirably). |
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| What
Allen's Alright, Still (Capitol) shares with the cinematically
rapping Skinner's work is an analysis of—and love for—London's
seedy underbelly. What she shares with English '70s hitmaker
Alex "Judge Dread" Hughes
is a Caucasian complexion mixed with the application of reggae
and ska into integrity-riddled pop. And bawdiness. She's not
shy about stating what she wants in the sack or wherever else
she desires manroot for relief of the hornies. |
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| Allen's
incorporation of loungey-ness à la Stereolab,
grime, breakbeats and trip-hop elements, sound like her own
extensions of Jamaican popular music's riddmic (they use 'riddims'
over there, right?; well, that's the adjective) aesthetic.
And her slight-but-tough voice is as right for her rare expressions
of regret as it is for her more frequent mean/snarky streak. |
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| Thankfully,
Allen's music is strong enough to buttress—and not distract
from—the reputation she'd already built up online (where
I discovered her; Thank you, BBC
Radio 1!) as a fearless slagger of other pop divas' and
divos' excesses and ridiculousness. |
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| One
could reasonably assume, at this point, that
AKON's stint in the slammer was almost a set-up to
pen and sing the engaging "Locked Up", earlier in
the '00s, and deliberately follow up that solid début
with increasingly risible singles. |
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| OK,
the exception to that might be what he did with sped-up samples
to Bobby Vinton's "Mr. Lonely",
but that's possibly only because it was the closest thing
to a novelty song, on the chart, in relative eons. That Akon
got some love from Radio Disney with what he did to that 1964
hit, and surrounded that point in his discography with odes
to watching and/or...ahem...engaging strippers, doesn't
so much prove any hypocrisy on his part as much as how rinky-dink
he sounds as a lothario. If I want to hear someone with a
voice I'd like to hear in church but whose lyrical proclivities
betray the likelihood of darkening one's door, give me Nate
Dogg; his sung choruses on Warren G.'s "Regulate"
continue to enthrall and spook me 13 years after the fact.
Akon's a wuss, by comparson, and dueting with a brilliant
theatrical sociopath such as Eminem
(infamously, on "Smack That") doesn't toughen him
up any. |
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| I
invite any other chrome-domed pop aspirants born in the U.S.
and raised below the Sahara—or, indeed, originating from
elsehwere— to make Akon a distant memory sooner than
later. A cage match will work as well as Ryan Seacrest's top
40 countdown, I'd say. |
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| Maybe
next time I'll cover some soul gospel by an act that's not
a female soloist; but, this month, LIZ
McCOMB's just too good for me not to hip you to her. |
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| McCombs
has flitted about the edges of commercial Afrimerican gospel,
but it was probably never the most comfortable fit. If it's
her fault, that's no bad thing. There may be no more inventive,
intuitive, and judicious gospel singer since Marion
Williams and Mahalia Jackson
(some Mavis Staples and Gladys
Knight could very well be in McComb's catalog of influences,
also). Tastes wide enough to embrace traditional Golden Age
black church stomping to a variety of jazz syles, hip-hop,
country, neo-soul and chamber classical, not to mention the
occasional secular love ballad, and recording it all on
the same project, may have hindered her chances among
some parishioners, too. |
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| So,
like a sanctified and singing Josephine
Baker, McCombs is as well off in France. Or at least
on a French label, where Soul, Peace & Love
(Bonsai/EMI France) has been released. One hopes that
her eclectic breadth and artfully elastic vocal versatility
can bring McComb greater appreciation, despite the current
U.S. radio environment for any of the numerous genres into
which she slips in and out. |
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| Meanwhile,
you—from fundamentalists to atheists—have my endorsement
that, at first listen, you'll fall in love with the impressive
McComb. (learn
more); (learn
even more) |
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| How
much cooler was SNOOP DOGG's
recent collaboration with R. KELLY,
"That's That" (or "That's That Sh*t" if
you're not hearing it on terrestrial radio), when I thought
Dogg was rapping about "the Shire" and, thus, extrapolated
that the man responsible for too many people adapting their
speaking to include "-izzle" after the end of every
third word was giving his environs a nickname taken from Tolkien
novels? |
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| Considering
how I finally understood that Kelly, in his current chart
climber, "I'm a Flirt", was singing about "the
Chi"—as in his hometown of Chicago—and figuring
Dogg was saluting his duet partner's burg on "That's
That", it was fairly plenty cooler when I thought
Dogg was shouting out the Hobbits' habitat. |
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| And,
now, a word about LESA CARLSON OFF BLUE. |
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| Carlson:
an ethereally, archly compassionate, opera-trained jazz singer
(and raw foods chef/restauranteur). Off Blue: Carlson's improvisatory
band—featuring flute, trumpet, drums, bass and turntables.
The album (with a 2003 copyright, but just sent to me on last
month): Evolution Into the Conscious Revolution (Yellow/Strange
Fruit). The result: tripped out funkiness of a mistily psychedelic,
socially conscious (duh?) redolence. |
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| And
though Evolution is completely musically improvised,
it's tight enough to give the opposite impression. Carlson's
search for meaning, connectedness, and the impulse of the
aural moment is as much about the cascade of sound around
her as it's in the impressionistic verse of her lyrics. Her
refashioning of standards such as "Brother, Can You Spare
Dime?" and "Nature Boy" alter contexts almost
perversely but, ultimately, sensibly. |
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| My
guess is that seeing Carlson (and) Off Blue live would be,
at once, intense and serene. There's a peculiarly transfixing
energy about this effort that has me interested in hearing
more. (learn
more) |
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| I
know I'm not the first one to mention it in print, and that
doing so, now—a few years after its release on DVD—may
seem a moot point, but how is it that songs fun, educational
and catchy as those heard on "Fat
Albert and The Cosby Kids" were never released
apart from the TV show? Apart from being a bonus in one
of those DVD releases, that is. There must be some reissue
label—Sundazed? Numero Group? Rhino? Hip-O?—that
could release those Junkyard Band gems for the first time
and, even with that buubblegum soul bumptiousness that marks
the ditties as products of the '70s, push them in the children's
market, where more happening parents (and, at risk of cluing
you into my age) grandparents could turn on their young'uns
to, arguably, the best music to ever be associated with
Bill Cosby. |
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| Devin
Smith
took the alias of CASSETTE
for what was intended to be: a one-shot performance opening
for another band. It's gotten a bit further than that now. |
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| One
instrumental track from his/(now) their Beautiful California
(Atomisk/Honor Roll) has already been used in a VISA Card
commercial. And Cassette's touring behind the re-release
of this album beyond its initial über-indie pressing. |
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| Oh,
the music? Weird, but familiar. Made in Smith's bedroom,
it's both synthetic and organic. In a stream of acutely
aware consciousness, 35 songs fly by, no silence between
them, in under 40 minutes. Manic but mannered oddball pop
that ingratiates itself into the bloodstream via the usual
auditory routes. And, like a good episode of Seinfeld or
a dream you immediately remember just before the end of
your R.E.M. cycle, it's about everything but next to nothing
at all. |
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| If
Smith and his foils can pull this off in live performance,
I'm supposing it would remind me of the one time I saw The
Fiery Furnaces tear through something around 20 songs
without so much as a "Hi, how ya doin'?" from
singer Eleanor Friedberger
through the rush of sound. Here's wanting to find out for
myself. (learn
more); (learn
even more); (learn
more still) |
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Am I in a miniscule minority in believing BEYONCÉ
KNOWLES' bitterly buttery recent smash, "Irreplaceable",
halfway sounds like a country song? |
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| I
finally figured out why. It's not only the acoustic guitar
strums (or programmed facsimiles thereof?). Nor is it the
melodic and lyrical combination that comes off like Tammy
Wynette's song for a black fraternity/sorority step
show ("To the left/to the left"...). |
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| Down
to the chordal progressions, it sounds like 'Yornce (as
I'm fond of calling the annoyingly ubiquitous diva) has
recorded an answer song to Keith Urban's
best slow jam so far, "You'll Think of Me". She
even captures the same type of sugar-coated spitefulness
Ms. Kidman's blonder half handled so well in his
hit. |
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| That
doesn't mean I've much more use for La 'Yornce, but that
neither means I'll not credit cross-genre cleverness when
I hear it, either. Good job, Knowles. Urban, start recording
songs as good as the aforementioned, again. Soon, please. |
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| It's
just a Web site, and I don't know if I'm going to buy anything
from it any time in the near future, but TSDiscos
(a/k/a Tecate & Summer's Discotienda)
is a hecka fun way to while (waste?) away some interWeb
time. |
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| T&S
specializes in selling Spanish language pop music collectibles—be
they a Mexican promo CD of that country's up and coming
pop-punk band ALLISON or an
early '90s RICKY MARTIN picture
disc LP, also from the country south of Tejas (and, at $50,
one of the site's pricier items). A few perusals of the
site reveal that a majority of the items sold there come
from Mexico, even if all the acts whose goodies are sold
don't. |
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| I
don't know whether I'd ever have time enough to listen to
and read/look through all the cool stuff I could buy from
TSD, but I'd love to collect it in roughly the same way
I did cartoon cocktail napkins from mom's bowling nights,
when I was a kid. I only have so much in common with the
culture from which the material derives, but it's colorful,
fun and, in this case, iconic of that odd paradox of youthful
innocence and commercial carnality that seems to typify
Hispanic countries' teen pop culture. That summary goes
a long way in explaining RBD, anyway, huh? |
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| Hey,
Tecate and Summer, how about supplying one of your biggest
fans—if not customers—with promos of the Spanish
language pop/rock he wants to keep writing about in this
very column? |
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| As
always, dear readers, send music—most any kind you like
that you think I would, too—to the usual... |
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P.O.
Box 29
Waupun, Wisconsin 53963-0029
USA |
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