"Now" Gets Better

Wow, how do I even begin this post?

Duran Duran is not only still around but has launched their latest US tour.

And that's not even the coolest part.

They even started their tour in my area so I got to see the freshness of their energy on stage.

Wait, it gets cooler...

Let's back up. It is autumn of the year 2011 and my saving grace of a band from the 80s is still going strong and released a new album, All You Need Is Now, last spring. However, just as they were going to tour to promote the album, lead singer Simon LeBon woke up one morning with no voice.

In all their years of making music and touring the world, this problem never arose before, causing a very sad, but necessary postponement of the tour that was to start in the UK. LeBon went through months of therapy and even surgery. Gradually, his voice came back. The progress of his healing buzzed through the Internet. We all waited, hopeful for a full recovery.

And full it was! This was the third time I've seen the Wild Boys live (my fourth time seeing John Taylor since I saw him in the Power Station when they came to Seattle) and it seems that the passing of a few decades seem nothing to them.

What made this more cool is that they came a few days shy of my anniversary and birthday, so what can be cooler than that?

This:

Remember I wrote about Durandy a couple of times? He has become a good friend of mine so I was happy to spot him outside after the concert. Naturally, he was extremely jazzed up, but I had yet to find out just how much.

His lovely girlfriend was with him and sporting a huge rock on her finger. She was now Durandy's lovely fiancée!

It gets better:

With the help of local radio station, 101.5 (the same station on which I listened to him many years ago), Durandy had things set up ahead of time that they would meet the band before the concert and HELP him to PROPOSE!

Surrounded by the band-mates, a fully-healed LeBon handed Durandy the ring for him to propose with.



Best wishes to you all!

All You Need Is Now!

Weird Beat

Yesterday, I was at the Puayllup Fair, a major annual fair in the state I live in. It holds a stadium that hosts concerts throughout the year, including during the fair. Tickets to get into the fair are separate from tickets to get into the concert, but fair goers can and do listen in on the concerts going on.

In previous years, I have listened to The Steve Miller Band, and have caught a glimpse at The Manhattan Transfer during my visits to the Fair.

This year I listened in on Weird Al Yankovic. What a treat! I had only learned that he was performing there a couple of days earlier and so I could not prepare myself to attend the concert itself, but it was a lot of fun to hear his music live and listen to the audience.

Yes, the audience was a mix of screams of appreciation and roars of laughter. Next time he comes around, I hope to be a part of such an audience!

I vaguely knew of him when he made parodies like "I Like Rocky Road" (from "I Like Rock and Roll" by Joan Jett), and "My Bologna" (from "My Sharona" by The Knack), but, like to many others, he became a famous sensation to me when he dared to parody the King of Pop during his peak.

Michael Jackson was riding high on the success of his Thriller album and nobody could say anything against him without facing a fight. What Yankovic did could have been considered as making fun of Jackson and angered the Pop fans, but, luckily, Jackson fans and non-fans alike saw it for what it is; humorous.

But not only did the song sound very much like the original, but he made his video look very much like Jackson's video, except...

Remembered

Ten years ago, The United States of America woke up and started its day.

Then its world was changed.

That was the day that came to be known simply as 9/11.

We were attacked, many people died, and the way we viewed the world and people around us was changed forever.

There are many theories on who's to blame, whether it was an inside job or from another country, but I would rather keep political stuff out of my blog. What I would like to point out, however, is that whoever is behind that devastating morning should feel immeasurable shame, but one would wonder if they are capable of shame at all.

I find Duran Duran's song, "Do You Believe In Shame?" (from 1989), to be appropriate to tribute to this day. It was written in grief for deceased friends of the band members, but I think it can now speak for the grief and uncertainty that we were plunged into, and also for the strength in the memories that help us to move forward.

Also, the video for "Do You Believe In Shame" was filmed in New York, where many landmarks were cameoed in the background, including the Twin Towers, which can be seen at 3:12.



"I believe a little part of you inside of me will never die."

Jazzin' It Up

I have mentioned country in a previous post as a style of music that is not often thought of when talking of 80s music but has made its appearance in the mainstream of popular listening.

Another one is jazz.

For the most part, I am not a fan of jazz. Much of it, to me, sounds like confused instruments fighting for the spotlight. But, naturally, not all of it sounds that way. There are, indeed, some jazz pieces that can give the mental picture of a hot, smoky, crowded jazz hall feel familiar and cozily intimate. Not that I've ever been to a jazz hall. It's just what I picture in my mind when I hear jazz that's pleasant to me.

One such song comes from the Absolute Beginners soundtrack. I have mentioned before that I thought little of the movie itself but there are some notable songs from the film.

"Have You Ever Had It Blue" by The Style Council makes my knees weak. I love the long intro and the buildup to present a voice that could melt the Hershey's factory with a single song.



There's another song that makes me want to sway in a smoky jazz hall. This one is by George Michael, who is not known for his jazz, but his talent in being versatile with music has managed to smooth it onto the charts like massage oil.



Now excuse me while I melt for a bit...

The Subject at Hand

It's September, so many young student bodies are going back to school to... learn.

However, there can be many distractions to paying attention to the subjects at hand, such as being taught by a cute teacher. It has happened to the best of us.

Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" video shows a bit of what's really on a student's mind sometimes, whether it's what they wish would happen, or that their teacher is, indeed, hot in reality. I find that an unfortunate bit of this video, though, promotes bullying the "weird" kid at school. I'd rather us focus instead on the subject at hand...

Felt-Tip Eyes

Back in the days when pay cable channels was worth it, HBO featured an intriguing music video where it often played cartoons and short films in between featured films.

The video was made cartoon-style animation, but what made this unique was that the frame-by-frame pictures were colored in by felt-tip marker, causing the moving images to change their appearances slightly in each frame.

I have not seen their video on any other music video show so it was cool for me to find it on YouTube after all this time.

The song itself, "Big Brown Eyes" by the dBs has a cool sound to go with it.