#music biographer

[blackinmotionpictures]

CHEVALIER (2023) dir. Stephen Williams

[jron]

It’s never too late to build something new.

Take R.L. Burnside, born in in 1926, who moved out of the Mississippi Delta and up to Holly Springs, where he lived for most of his life. He was a farmer & fisherman who learned to play guitar from his neighbor, went on to play a lot of shows and blues joints, gained some notoriety, and finally started putting out records in the 1980s, when he was around 50.

These were excellent blues records, but stay with me here, because it gets better. I’m not going to give you his whole discography, and I’m skipping over a lot of great stuff, with most of it firmly rooted in both north Mississippi and in the Delta. Original music to be sure, and very good, but also very much in the style of its place, what you might expect to hear in a blues joint.

After the release of Too Bad Jim in the early 1990s, he started getting invited to perform at music festivals around the world, increasing his popularity and access. He toured with Jon Spencer in the later 1990s (yes that’s his voice on Chicken Dog and him playing guitar on other songs) and he picked up a lot of new fans who were into the garage, punk and blues-rock scenes. Around 1997, Burnside released Sound Machine Groove, including some new versions of his earlier work, like this one:

During all that time, this old man was getting more and more into dubbing, remixing, and the newer sounds of the 90s, and only one year later—1998, when he was 71 years old—he released this album, Come On In. To me, it’s groundbreaking; he was trying out new things with the blues, with rock, with dubbing, things that just work.

You can hear a bit of how his time with Spencer influenced him (and the other way around), but the clear confidence of it is what really gets me. And he kept pushing himself, making music, and in 2004 at the age of 77, he recorded this masterpiece, A Bothered Mind.

Seriously, just go listen to it all. Here’s a sampling:

Sadly, Burnside died in 2004, never getting to keep building on that sound. But he’s an inspiration to me in how he kept trying new things and absorbing new influences for his whole life.

He took his classic sound and kept playing and inventing and experimenting, traveling the world, meeting new people, connecting different styles, and making something no one else ever had.

And it’s all so damn good.

[texaschainsawmascara]

England Is Mine

[schlock-luster-video]

On May 4, 2009, Lisztomania was released on DVD in the United Kingdom.

[hanselw]

Sarasate life manga part 1

I will update it irregularly.

[theaskew]

[coldhardbinch]

New rule for Tudor historians: keep Katherine Howard's name out of your fucking mouth unless you're willing to acknowledge the fact that she was sexually abused as a minor by men with authority over her

[moviesiveseenandwanttoremember]

Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle, & Karen O'Connor's "Joan Baez: I Am A Noise" October 6, 2023.

[atlastv]

"WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story Trailer (2022)"

[giorgio52fan]

Remembering Freddie Mercury: A Musical Icon's Enduring Legacy on His 77th Birthday

On September 5th, 1946, a legendary musical talent was born who would go on to captivate hearts and souls around the world. Freddie Mercury, the charismatic frontman of the iconic rock band Queen, would have turned 77 years old today. Though he left us far too soon, his remarkable legacy lives on through his groundbreaking music, electrifying performances, and lasting influence on the music…

[fioletowyfacet]

//Was thinking about Porfirio's hypothetical opinions on musical theater and I think he lacks juuust enough knowledge of American history that the ending of Hamilton would be shocking to him.

//Fortunately, he exists several decades too early and must therefore settle for 1776 (1972 film), so I don't need to think about this further.

[passionforfiction]

Weird The Al Yankovic Story

I'm an 80s child and a 90s teen, so I grew up in the grand era of MTV. I grew up singing to Michael Jackson, Madonna, Queen, Elton John, rock bands and all the other music genre popular at the time. . . And I grew up listening to Weird Al's master parodies. I watched his movies too. My brother and I were counting the months to see this "biographical" movie about one of our favorite music artists and today we finally watched it. I will say that I had expected some sort of alternate universe sort of story because of what Daniel Radcliffe said in an interview but this movie is so wild that the audience knows this is anything BUT a biographical film. And that's when I realized that he didn't want to tell his story; he was doing what he does best: a parody of biographical films. BOOM! Blew my mind.

Biographical films have always been popular and lately we've had some really good ones about musicians: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Rocketman (2019) and Elvis (2022). Weirld Al takes his life and turns it into a parody of this genre, incorporating all the clichés typical in this kind of film: the rearrangement of events to create tension and move the plot; unsupporting parents, lovers that use them to better their careers and at the end reconnecting with the people who love them.

The movie starts with Weird Al taken to a surgery room and then moves us back to the "beginning" - his childhood. This reminded me of Rocketman that starts with Elton John leaving a concert and arriving to a group therapy session and from there, taking us to his beginnings - his childhood. But these movies don't only start in mid- plot, they also change order in which certain things happened and embellish relationships to hint at things that are not accurate, in a way that stretches or softens reality. For example, in Elvis, the relationship between Elvis and Priscilla is presented in a way that romanticizes their relationship. In Bohemian Rhaspody, makes it look like the band split up because Freddy wanted to make a solo album when it was another member of the band who expressed this need first, and this is one of many different changes. In Rocketman, it is hinted that Taupin wrote "Your Song" for Elton when Taupin said in an interview that it wasn't so. All these changes drive the plot of the story but by changing things, the story is no longer being truthful and what's real is transformed into fiction. And good fiction has great antagonists.

In this version, Weird Al's parents are anything but supportive just like we see in Bohemian Rhaspody and Rocketman. These three musicians share their desire to be accepted by their fathers. This hurtful father-son relationships trigger their sadness and strangles their ability to accept themselves as they are, hence the hiding of their true selves. We might no see this in Elvis, but we have the mentor who manipulates and isolates him from those he loves which we also see in Bohemian Rhaspody (Freddy's relationship with Paul), and Rocketman (Elton's relationship with his manager). In Weird, we have Madonna as the lover who isolates him from his friends and he takes this to the extreem by adding fight scenes, and a kidnappings by a drug lord. But all these fictionalized biographies are inspiring because these people were/are agents of change and were able to achieve their goals; they fell but were able to heal and rise again.

Weird Al's contribution to pop culture in the United States is huge and he inspired us to be as "weird" as we are. But there is something else that I liked about this mega fictionalized "biography" - the criticism on the concept of originality and creativity. In the film, people in the industry and his parents kept telling Al that his songs had no value because they were using the music of existing songs. Remix Culture experts like Lessing, Jenkins and Ferguson are very clear on the fact that all creative work is based or influenced by those that came before. What makes something "original" is it's transformative nature and Weird Al transforms each song into something totally different, totally new and it's protected by Fair Use. Some artists didn't mind being parodied while others did. And he presents both sides in the movie by putting himself in their shoes by having his song "Eat it" come before Jackson's "Beat It''. It's funny to see him enraged, refusing to sing the song because he thinks people will connect it to the "parody." It just shows how ridiculous it is. In the other side, we have artists who see the benefit of having their songs parodied- new and old audiences rediscover the original songs and artists, thus bringing new profit.

This is a brilliant and weird as hell movie with criticism hidden in the laughter. Don't see it expecting to learn who Weird Al is outside of his profession because this film is another parodes masterpiece.

[voluptuarian]

I'm losing it, I was looking for a song I filmed a music video for back in high school and randomly stumbled on a website mentioning a separate fanvid I made in like 2007

[schlock-luster-video]

On October 11, 2011, Lisztomania was released on the Internet in France.

Here's some new Roger Daltrey art!

[know-it-all-freak]

International Kissing Day today.

You're welcome.❤️