#the aforementioned partridge family song

[claramurphyqueenoffandoms]

A Little Look Back

So, this year’s been fun!

In all this time, I’ve started posting three fanfics--

Fallen Out Of That Impossible Sky - a wingfic for The Man Who Was Thursday

All Shall Sing The Ocean’s Song - the VoicePlay Moana AU

Be Silent With You - a sidestory for the aforementioned VoicePlay Moana AU, focused on Rachel Moana and Layne Hei-Hei (and completed!)

And introduced at least five other AUs on here, three of which are connected--

MML Star Wars - Cousin to the whole Phineas and Ferb Star Wars thing. I basically only talked about Cavendish as an Imperial commander and his connection to Candace, if I recall, but it was fun (I'm still planning on eventually responding to the responses/reblogs on that post, btw!)

The Journal of Shermie Pines - Dipper and Mabel's grandfather spends a summer with Ford in Gravity Falls when he's a kid (it's part cool adventure, part huge angst, so it'll fit right in, lol)

DuckTales Partridge Family - the Partridge Family in the Duckverse, with Shirley and Della as old college roommates, the Partridges and Ducks as co crazy adventure families, and Reuben and Donald as very tired unofficial dad-buddies.

Poe Strangeduck - Poe De Spell gets amnesia, is adopted as a little brother by a British agent, and becomes a magical detective (also, I'm kinda getting really into this one)

The Bernards - my favourite: a bunch of guys from across the world, and from various very strange situations and backgrounds (and fandoms) come together in a secret room under a bookshop because they want to complain together, dang it!

I’ve had a lot of fun with these, especially the Bernards and VoicePlay Moana. I'm very happy with how things are going with them all, because these are people that frankly just make me smile every time.

In the coming year, I'm hoping to post more frequently (though that might just mean more random story thoughts), give more fic updates, and get a little closer to actually finishing a few projects, and actually starting a few projects, in an official way.

I'm really looking forward to this, you guys! I love these stories, and it's nice being able to put it out there and let it play outside my head for a little while! I'm really excited about these ideas and these characters and the relationships and adventures that they have, and I can't wait to share them with whoever's listening!

And if that means you, thanks ever so much for reading! Let's do this, fellow fans! :)

[randomvarious]

Howard Roberts - “Lady Wants to Know” Swingin’ Jazz for Hipsters, Volume 1 Song released in 1978. Compilation released in 1997 Jazz

Howard Roberts might just be the most ubiquitous guitarist in American history. Most people probably don’t know his name, or even the fact that he was one of the greatest jazz guitarists who ever lived, but even if you haven’t heard of Howard Roberts, it’s pretty much a guarantee that you have heard him. Despite his preference for jazz, he can be heard on hundreds of film soundtracks, dozens of TV shows, and thousands of songs. He’s played with Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Chet Atkins, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Sammy Davis, Jr., the Beach Boys, Nat King Cole, Little Richard, Ella Fitzgerald, the Jackson 5, Sonny and Cher, the Supremes, and the Monkees. He’s even referred to as the sixth Monkee for appearing on so many of the band’s recordings throughout the 60s. He was part of the legendary Wrecking Crew, a collective of L.A. session musicians, as well as Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. 

You can hear Roberts’ guitar in The Twilight Zone theme song, the Gilligan’s Island theme song, I Love Lucy, The Munsters, Bonanza, The Brady Bunch, Green Acres, Get Smart, Batman, Beverly Hillbillies, The Andy Griffith Show, Peter Gunn, Lost in Space, Dragnet, Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible, The Odd Couple, Dick Van Dyke, I Dream of Jeannie, The Bill Cosby Show, Hawaii Five-O, The Jetsons, Little House on the Prairie, The Partridge Family, Petticoat Junction, The Flintstones, and The Addams Family. Movies his playing appears in include Barefoot in the Park, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Bullitt, Bye Bye Birdie, Camelot, Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, The Exorcist, Forrest Gump, Hud, The Longest Yard, Our Man Flint, The Pink Panther, Slap Shot, West Side Story, and The Wild Bunch.

So, there’s like a near-100% chance you’ve heard Howard Roberts, but you probably just didn’t know it.

Howard Roberts was born in Phoenix and by age 18 had migrated to L.A., where he assumed the role of a starving artist. But by playing in the right clubs and having an immense guitar talent, he was noticed and his career grew. He was a super versatile player, able to adapt to just about any style, as evidenced in the aforementioned lists. But his true love was jazz, and as a jazz guitarist, he recorded over a dozen albums. In 1978, he did a one-off with the now-legendary west coast label Concord Jazz called The Real Howard Roberts. On that album appears a sweet song called “Lady Wants to Know”.

“Lady Wants to Know” has Howard Roberts playing a guitar that has that beachy, upwardly inflected, smooth jazz quality to it, and for a good bit of the song, that style predominates. But the compilation this song appears on is called Swingin’ Jazz for Hipsters, so it’s got to swing. And it does. Starting at about the 1:05 mark and lasting until about 2:50, Roberts and his backers revert back to a style of playing that’s reminiscent of some of our favorite 50s and 60s jazz records. Roberts ditches relaxing melodies for a faster, more advanced style, packing way more notes into phrases and almost sounds improvised. And on the back end of the swing segment, he allows Ross Tompkins to shine on piano. 

A pretty cool late 70s hybrid of smooth jazz and swing, led by a guitarist you’ve definitely heard before.

[soundsof71]

Hal Blaine: “May he rest forever on 2 and 4.”

That quote is from his family’s Facebook posting, announcing Hal Blaine’s passing at age 90.

He played on 40 #1 singles, 150 top 10s, some 6000+ tracks in all. (You’ll see stats that say north of 30,000 but don’t believe the hype. All these guys were union and kept their timecards. When Hal says more than 6000, he knew what he was talking about.)

Hal was the drummer on six straight Grammy Record of the Year winners, 1966 through 1971: 

“A Taste of Honey”, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

“Strangers In The Night”, Frank Sinatra

“Up, Up, and Away”,  The Fifth Dimension

“Mrs. Robinson”, Simon & Garfunkel

“Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In”, The Fifth Dimension

“Bridge Over Troubled Water”, Simon & Garfunkel

Plus if it was a studio recording by The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Sonny & Cher, Carpenters, The Association, The Fifth Dimension, or The Partridge Family, the odds are that it was probably Hal. 

You don’t need me to cue up Hal’s biggest hits like the ones listed above, or “Be My Baby”, “Good Vibrations” (Hal seen below working on it with Brian Wilson)...

...so I’m going to take you to the first song that made me say, “WHO’S PLAYING  THOSE DRUMS?!?!” The song was a deceptively complicated pop trifle called “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe, and it spent four weeks at #1, starting on March 15, 1969 (50 years ago almost to the day as I write this). 

I say deceptively complicated because even though it’s basically two verses and the chorus three times (it actually starts with the chorus, which I’m a sucker for.) There’s not even a bridge, but it manages to go through 11 key changes in less than three minutes! And while there are other instruments, I always heard it as a duet between the drums and the strings. 

You already know it was Hal Blaine on strings, and the string arranger was another member of the extended family known at the time as The Usuals, Jimmie Haskell. I was delighted to find this, as both Hal and Jimmie were well known to me from so many other albums in the family collection by then. (I was reading album credits before I was reading books.) 

This really is an astonishing track. Bubblegum pop on one level, exceptionally baroque on another, and a drums-strings pas de deux the likes of which we’ve yet to hear again. I used to listen to this on repeat for hours, singing at the top of my lungs -- including the drum breaks and strings stings (c’mon, you know you sing instrumental parts too!) spinning around and around the room until I was DIZZY. 

Check Hal’s snare kicking it off like a gunshot.

I have a couple of other gems of Hal’s that are a little off the beaten path.

I hope that y’all are enough in the know by now to not be pissing on The Partridge Family, who was making absolutely first-rate pop composed by some of the best writers of the day, with pros like Hal Blaine laying down the tracks. 

(Plus, c’mon, David Cassidy would have been a singing star without the show,  and Shirley Jones WAS a star, an Oscar-winner no less, with one of the great voices that humankind has ever been blessed with.)

“I Can Hear Your Heartbeat” uses Hal’s right foot on the bass pedal as the titular heartbeat, until the whole kit comes swinging in after the first verse. One of the keys to appreciating Hal (or any drummer, really) is to listen to when he starts and stops, and the gaps in between what his hands are doing. This one is a real gem. 

(And yes, there’s performance footage of the Partridges of course, but none of the clips SOUND good enough to hear all that Hal is up to.)

Now having sung Hal’s praises, I’ll note again that it’s possible to overstate the case (which Hal encouraged, and participated in more than once). There were plenty of other drummers on the Hollywood studio scene, including Earl Palmer (very likely on more records than Hal in fact), plus a number of times that Hal was one of a couple of drummers on a single track.

This was a Phil Spector trick. Multiple drums, multiple bassists (often one electric and one acoustic), and an army of guitars all playing at once were the key to the Wall of Sound, NOT multitracking. Sure, Phil used that too now and again, but rarely to add depth. More often for polishing, because there’s no substitute for the vibrations in the air when all those players are playing simultaneously. THAT’s the Wall of Sound, and Hal and his friends are the exact musicians Phil used.

Mike Nesmith used this "Wall of Sound” trick to fine effect when he produced one of the best tracks he wrote for The Monkees, “Mary Mary”, so sharp that it appeared in FIVE episodes, yet still manages to be too little known.

“Mary Mary” features FIVE guitarists (Glen Cambell and James Burton both on lead, with Peter Tork among the rhythm players), two bassists (Larry Knechtel and Bob West), and two drummers (Hal Blaine and Jim Gordon, whose name may also be familiar to you from Derek & The Dominoes, George Harrison, Delaney & Bonnnie,  et al.), with notable percussive support from Cary Coleman.

This is definitely Hal kicking it off, though, with a snare lick so sweet that Mike looped it three times and added it to the front of the track, making it that much easier to sample, and sampled it was, including on a nifty COVER of this track by Run-D.M.C. (even though they changed Mike’s lyric on the verses, Mike is the only writer credited) that also used Mickey’s vocal singing the words “Mary Mary”.

I should mention that The Monkees’ version of “Mary Mary” was never released as a single in the US, but WAS included as a cardboard cutout single on the back of Honey Combs cereal!!!! Yes, I had it, though, like a fool, I failed to keep  up with it.

Anyway, this is GROOVE, kids.

Last but not least, Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation” (1968) was so far ahead of its time that it STILL sounds like it’s from the future. Originally recorded early in the year, it was re-recorded for the famed Elvis ‘68 TV special, but scrapped at the last minute. (Hal did in fact appear in the special!) The second version of "A Little Less Conversation” was used to outstanding effect in the 2001 version of Ocean’s Eleven, and a subsequent remix by Junkie XL charted even higher than Elvis’s original, going to #1 in 14 countries including the UK.

And all of ‘em featured Hal’s drums, absolutely swinging.

You’ve surely seen Hal’s name by now in the context of “The Wrecking Crew”, a name that he invented well after the era had finished to describe this loose group of LA studio aces. It was not only NOT used at the time, but explicitly and angrily rejected by many of the folks tagged with that label later (Leon Russell was so furious at the name that he insisted that the chapter of the movie devoted to him be removed, and he’s far from alone in his outrage)...but hey, as long as you keep that in mind, you can still enjoy the documentary of the same name for what it is: a long conversation between some of the folks who made some remarkable music.

You probably know the song “A Little Less Conversation” well enough (although you should check it out if you don’t), but in this little clip from the aforementioned Wrecking Crew movie, you can see 2008 Hal playing along with 1968 Hal for 30 seconds or so.

Watch his right hand in particular. It’s practically floating on air. He’s holding the drumstick so lightly that I bet you could have snuck up behind him and snatched it right out of his hand. Not that 70s rock drummers like Bonzo couldn’t swing plenty, but the death grip on drumsticks as heavy as telephone poles characteristic of later drumming is barely even the same thing as what Hal was doing.

I’m not saying one is better than the other -- I hope you know by now that I love light 60s pop every bit as much as heavy 70s rock -- but this clip tells you everything you need to know about why drummers in particular revere Hal as one of the greats...even if he pissed them off sometimes, too. 

Additional notes: the photo, the quote and some of the stats at the top are courtesy redef,  the picture of Hal with Brian Wilson is via forums.stevehoffman.tv, and the single of “Mary Mary” is via 45cat. The rest is from yewchewb, and me obsessively reading the back of albums since 1963.

Here’s a great list of highlights from Hal’s credits. You’re going to be flabbergasted by them. If you have any kind of record collection that dips into the 60s at all, you may have dozens of them.

And while most of Hal’s key work was in the 60s, he did in fact have a terrific 1971, with appearances on two albums each by The Partridge Family (including one of my favorite singles of theirs, “Echo Valley 2-6809″) and Barbra Streisand (Stoney End is one of my favorites by anyone that year), Carpenters (featuring “Rainy Days and Mondays”), and a good-sized handful more.

[joonbird]

Snow Angel 🎄

pairing: namjoon x reader (ft. ot7)

genre: fluff

wordcount: 1.5k

a/n: merry christmas! ♡

“We’re cornered. There’s no way out.” 

Your head snaps up, your mouth falling open in surprise. Your boyfriend is staring at you, his lips pressed in a solemn line.

“Namjoon, there must be something-”

“There isn’t time.” 

Namjoon shakes his head slowly. He exhales, straightening his shoulders. “We knew it would come to this.”

“Namjoon, no.” You protest emphatically, the words that are pulled out of your lips evaporate into a puff of frost. It is an uncharacteristically cold day for December. A thick duvet of crisp white snow hugs the earth, as snowflakes fall in drowsy succession around you. 

Namjoon reaches down and gives your hand a squeeze. You glance down at your clasped palms. He is wearing his new mittens, they are black, with crimson red crabs lopsidedly stitched into the wool.

(You had given them to him last night. Namjoon had immediately whipped off his WTAPS gloves and thrown them onto the floor in a melodramatic display of Christmas Gift Appreciation. He had then jumped up and down in excitement, small bounces that his lean body weren’t fully in control of. The domino effect went as follows: Namjoon knocked his shin on your bedside table, the lamp fell off, and it broke. Needless to say, melodramatics were not Kim Namjoon’s forte.)

“I’ll go. It’s the only way. I’ll distract him.” Namjoon declares suddenly, it is a sweeping statement, and you gasp.

“No! Namjoon, wait - !” 

But it is too late. Namjoon drops your hand and turns his head to give you one last gaze. “Get out of here while you still can, Y/N. I love you.” 

And then he runs around the corner out into the open.

Slackjawed, you hear it: the sound of Namjoon yelling, and an all too distinctive evil giggle.

Your instincts kick in, and you spring up from where you are crouched, racing out to the open, to where Namjoon is.

Jeon Jungkook is standing there, a fuzzy bucket hat on his head, a sling draped around his neck. The sling is stuffed to the brim with snowballs, and you watch with widened eyes as Jungkook reaches in and grabs a snowball. 

He hurls it at your boyfriend with a speed and ferocity that is both awe inspiring and terrifying. His arms are a blur, and you watch as Namjoon yelps out in protest, his body being pelted with snowball after snowball. Jungkook is laughing the entire time and showing no signs of slowing down.

“Got you!” Jungkook crows. He is distracted, and you look down. 

Your fingers are curled around a snowball. A perfectly shaped snowball. It is the one you had been working on right before Namjoon had sacrificed himself. 

You aim at Jungkook and throw with all your might.

The snowball arcs cleanly through the air, and it feels as if time stands still. You watch, your breath catching in your throat. Jungkook turns, spotting you, and he flings a snowball in your direction. 

You watch, your muscles tight with tension as your snowball continues to fly in the air… before it plops to the ground, no more than two metres away from you.

(Okay, in hindsight that may have been an overly optimistic shot to take.)

You hear Namjoon laugh, just as Jungkook’s snowball splatters over your chest. 

“Two in one!” Jungkook screams, and you turn your focus on him, your eyes narrowing into a glare.

“You take snowball fights way too seriously Jeon Jungkook.” 

“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

You point at the sling wrapped around his neck, recognizing the scrawled doodles on the white fabric. Love hearts with legs, a Taehyung signature.

“… Is that Tae’s sling?”

Jungkook lifts his nose in the air and folds his arms defiantly.

“I can’t reveal intel to the enemy.”

You narrow your eyes. “Like I said. You take the snowball fight way too seriously.”

(In fact, the snowball fight was the reason why Taehyung even had a sling in the first place. He and Jungkook had been testing out a snowball fight strategy wherein Taehyung would climb a tree and attack with snowballs from the branches. It had been a self labelled ‘flawless plan for victory’... until Taehyung had fallen out of aforementioned tree during a test run and sprained his wrist.)

Jungkook opens his mouth to retort, but a piercing scream pierces through the air. The scream is unmistakably Hoseok’s, and Jungkook’s ears practically prick up and he turns, sprinting away, snowball sling bobbing up and down.

You let out a huff of defeat and flop down onto the snow. Your hair fans out underneath you as you stare up at the sky. Despite the icy chill lingering in the air, the sun beats down on your face, the sky blue and streaked with clouds.

You hear footsteps crunching in the snow and your eyes flutter closed.

For the majority of your adult life, you hadn’t been one to make a huge deal out of Christmas. In the past, Christmas had always been a non-event - something to vaguely anticipate, but never something to actively celebrate. That was until you had met Kim Namjoon five years ago. 

You had fallen into Namjoon, into a clumsy and quick kind of love that felt like every cliche bundled up into one - butterflies, songs on the radio reminding you of him, you lying awake with your phone pressed to your chest and a giddy smile painted on your cheeks. 

Dating Namjoon meant holidays under blankets, agonizing over getting your boyfriend the perfect present, kisses absently pressed on the top of your head in between cups of chamomile tea. 

Dating Namjoon also meant being adopted into his circle of friends, and Namjoon had casually warned you five Christmases ago that they were ‘kind of Christmas enthusiasts.’

You had soon learned that ’Kind of’ meant ‘Extreme’. Each of your friends has a Christmas Thing. Hoseok texts you inaccurate Christmas carol lyrics at varying intervals throughout the day, (this morning you had gotten ‘get your boo a partridge in a pear tree. keep that love 100’ and a series of love heart emojis) Seokjin buys everyone matching Christmas sweaters, (the goal being that the more obscure the sweater the better. This year he scrounged up ‘Santa and his Reindeer as outdated vines’ jumpers) Jimin and Yoongi hold a festive movie marathon (during which Yoongi always complains about how the Santa Clause movie has too many loopholes, and Jimin recites half of Home Alone by heart). And last but not least, Jungkook and Taehyung have their annual snowball fight (which you really do need to put a stop to because the sight of Jungkook the Cackling Snowball Machine is one you never want to see again.)

You open your eyes to see Namjoon smiling down at you.

“We lost,” He says simply. “Again.” 

You huff out in frustration and fold your arms.

“Yeah, but that’s because our friends are so-” You begin.

“Intense.” Namjoon finishes.

“And way too competitive.” 

“And weirdly accurate at throwing snowballs. Jungkook hit my er, personal ornaments three times and I swear it was on purpose.”

A giggle escapes your lips and Namjoon joins in, his mitten clapping over his mouth as if to catch his laugh.

“They’re alright,” You begrudgingly admit, trying to keep up your grumpy facade, but you are smiling. Namjoon reads in between your lines as he always does. I love them, even with all their weird Christmas traditions.

“They’re alright.” He agrees, and this time you read in between his lines. I love them, they’re family.

Namjoon’s eyes soften as he gazes at you, his face is all dimples and creased eyes and the tiniest hint of a smile fighting on his lips- an utterly Namjoon facial expression that is only brought about as a result of you. 

He reaches out and affectionately cups your face with a mittened hand. The wool is cold and scratchy on your skin, but you keen into his palm as he leans closer to you.

His beanie is askew on his head, snowflakes dusting the shoulders on his obnoxious Christmas sweater. He brings his other hand to your cheek and his face eases into a smile- one that fills your belly with a golden kind of warmth, one of those signature Namjoon smiles that makes you feel shy and captivated and fuzzy and prickly, all at once. 

“My snow angel.” He murmurs, his deep voice is clear and confident, and you blush, even through the frost clinging to your cheeks.

“You’re so lame.” You roll your eyes at him. Namjoon’s smile widens, your hands wind around the back of his neck as you pull him in closer to you.

His lips brush over yours, a light touch that is silvery and like a whisper, before he leans in closer and deepens the kiss. 

His lips taste like cinnamon, his lips soft and full and you can’t help but swoon into him, at the sensation of his tongue dancing against yours, his hands cupping your face and the sound of him sighing into your mouth. 

He pulls away, pressing a kiss onto your cheek and onto your forehead, and you feel delightfully tipsy with each stamp of his lips to your skin.

“We’ll win next year.” Namjoon says decisively. You scrunch your nose.

(Not a chance: Namjoon has a strange tendency of making cube shaped snowballs that fall apart mid air. You also cannot throw a snowball to save your life, see earlier attempt at taking out Snowball Fight competitor Jeon Jungkook for evidence.)

“Definitely. If not next year, then in five. We can train in secret or something and catch Jungkook and Tae offguard.” You say lightly.

“I don’t even know if five years of training is enough. Jungkook had so many snowballs before. I don’t even know when he had time to make that many...” Namjoon has a perplexed look on his face.

“Fifty years then.” You propose. Namjoon beams at that and nods in agreement.

“Merry Christmas my love.” He kisses the tip of your nose.

“Merry Christmas Namjoon.”