Faithfully I know the cost of tickets we will all soon be homeless.
I have such a diverse CD collection I love reggae, Abba, Beatles, Otis Redding etc etc the only music I really don't like is Jazz and Classical but I love music it give you the heartbeat to life.
Michael Jackson is one of those singers you will always remember and his music will always evoke memories of good times
Leonard is always top of the pile though. In my eyes no one can surpass him
Dublin 14th June, Manchester 20th June, O2 17th July, Matlock Bandstand Aug 28, O2 14th November, Royal Albert Hall 17th and 18th November 2008, MBW 11th July 2009, Liverpool Echo 14th July 2009
"I Want You Back" was the only song by Michael Jackson that I could say I liked. I'm sorry to hear about his death, but I could not imagine a Peter Pan figure, with all the plastic surgery surviving comfortably into old age.
Well here's my Michael Jackson memory....My husband had just left me and I had just moved into a new apartment in Berkeley, and I was feeling rather blue over the demise of the marriage. So a bunch of my radical femme friends decided to throw me a housewarming party to try and assuage my grief. There was drinking, there was dancing, and we got a bit loud and the neighbors called the police. We promised to quiet down, the police left, and we cranked it up again..the police came and gave us "one last warning"...and we said, yeah, ok, we promise, and for a while we really did try to behave, really....but then my lesbian friend Annie (the tallest and the blondest girl) arrived on her Harley-Davidson motorcycle, with a whole contingent from the Dykes on Bikes roaring into the driveway. They always ride in the gay pride marches in San Francisco... And the leather-clad ladies had come bearing a gift...it was Thriller--on vinyl, because there were no such things as "CDs" back then.... And so late into the night the Sisters of Sappho and I got pie-faced drunk; we moonwalked to Billie Jeanand did the dance of the ghouls, over and over again, just like on the Thrillervideo, only funnier, because we were so wasted. The neighbors gave in and joined the party, and one of the cops who'd finished his shift came along and ghoul-danced with us, too. I guess he figured, with all those women, he was bound to get lucky, the poor clueless fool...anyway, that's a very fine memory I have, and Michael Jackson was part of that, and I'll always be grateful.
[quote="Paula
the only music I really don't like is Jazz and Classical
I'm really sorry to hear that. But I'd like to gently suggest that perhaps you've been hearing and loving a lot of jazz and classical music without even realizing it.
For instance, Thriller was produced by Quincy Jones, a bonafide genius and one of the finest jazz musicians of the twentieth century. So that's why so many of the "licks" on the album are pure jazz. The bass line, and godamighty, listen to those horns !!
And I remember careening down a highway, doing about 90 mph, with the radio all the way UP, listening to an extended version of the Doors "Love Her Madly" and realizing that the absolutely incredible killer riff in the middle of that song is just jazz, and without jazz, we'd have no rock and roll.
There is so much jazz I love--and so much jazz influence in popular and rock and blues--it would be hard to name everybody. But then, what exactly do we mean when we say jazz? Big band? Dixieland? Improvizational? There's all different types of jazz. I love Louis Armstrong, Dukes of Dixieland, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, Charlie Haden, Irvin Mayfield, Kid Ory, Artie Shaw, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Bobby McFerrin---their styles are completely different, but all considered jazz (except that sometimes a few of them will crossover and throw in some classical just to make things more confusing or interesting, like when Bobby McFerrin teams up with the cellist Yo Yo Ma....) and I adore aaaaaalllllll the jazz divas from the forties to now, incredible singers and musicians---Peggy Lee (the best!! I saw her in concert !) Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holliday, Cleo Laine, Rosemary Clooney, Diana Krall, Diane Reeves...
One of my most prized albums on vinyl is a collection of corny old standards (As Time Goes By, etc) performed by Peggy Lee, with orchestration by a very young and then unknown Quincy Jones. It was recorded in 1962; I found it, in perfect condition, just a couple of years ago, in a box at a Salvation Army. I bought it for a dollar. I couldn't believe somebody threw this gem away! The music is incredible !!
Have you ever heard Candy Dulfer doing "Lily Was Here" on alto sax? It's probably on YouTube, and you'd love it. I promise.
As for classical, of course it takes a certain frame of mind to listen to music which, often as not, has no supporting lyric or words, only abstract sounds, to tell a story or evoke a feeling. I'm partial to Beethoven myself, but can readily admit that it can be a bit crashy and muddy if not performed by sensitive musicians, and especially if poorly recorded. I hated Beethoven when I heard the performances conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein was all hair and thrashing, a real drama queen, even when the music should have been pianissimo. But the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir George Solti, made all the difference in the world. For the piano sonatas, Vladimir Ashkenazy's performances are so lovely they'll make you weep. You've gotta settle back with a glass of wine and listen to the nuances, the mood, and for that, the notes and the different instruments need to be distinct from one another. Cheap recordings, where all the instruments sort of blend together in a mush of goulash, make it hard to enjoy--at least for me. And I do love the operas, especially Verdi, but again, it depends on who's singin'.
But enough of this riff...weren't we talkin' about Michael Jackson?
Paula, I hope you'll sample some jazz and classical. If you don't want to buy, you could check out your local library. They often have lots of good stuff.
And oh, yeah....forgetting to state the obvious...Leonard Cohen? Jazz and classical and folk and country and polka...all of it is up in there. The other day it dawned on me that a whole lot of Leonards compositions are waltzes!
Maybe this should go in another thread...
Hi Squidgy - I have tried Jazz it just all sounds disjointed to me I can't make head nor tail of it in my head. It jumbles my thought pattern
And Classical well I don't think anyone can really say they don't like classical as such. It is pleasant and easy listening but it is not something I would choose to listen to. I think it is the lack of lyrics. Having said that I quite like brass bands and steel bands even though there do not sing the lyrics but they normally play reconisable songs so in my head I have lyrics.
Possibly if I played an instrument I would see the attraction of Jazz and Classical but I don't play an instrument and my brain needs to have words.
As songs lyrics are so easy to remember on a couple of listens I often thought children would learn more if all lessons were set to music
Dublin 14th June, Manchester 20th June, O2 17th July, Matlock Bandstand Aug 28, O2 14th November, Royal Albert Hall 17th and 18th November 2008, MBW 11th July 2009, Liverpool Echo 14th July 2009
Squidgy, I loved your story about the party your friends threw for you and the arrival of Dykes on Bikes. Perfect timing for your story for they will be roaring down Market Street this Sunday!
Marsha
2008 Toronto June 6/ 2009 New York Feb 19 Oakland April 13 14 Coachella April 17 Ottawa May 25 26 Barcelona Sept 21 Las Vegas 11/12 San Jose 11/13
2010 Malmo Aug 4 Gothenburg Aug 12 Las Vegas Dec 10 & 11
2012 Verona 9/24 San Jose 11/7. Montreal 11/28 11/29/ 2013 Oakland 3/2 NYC 4/6
Hamilton 4/9
Paula, if you are interested in getting a good sample of jazz, at least in the rock world, and have a knack for killer lyrics, the only band I can think of to satisfy any kind of curiousity is Steely Dan. Aja is possibly one of the greatest albums ever made, at least in that it's completely flawless from begining to end. Sure, it's more adult contemporary, even for the '70s and '80s, but it's not as smooth and silly as Kenny G. (a guilty pleasure for most, such as myself), and it's not as wild and formless as free jazz (which can get you going just as well as any heavy metal album).
I also feel very sad about Michael Jackson's premature death. My feelings are inextricably linked, not so much to his material as such, but to the fact that my dancer/choreographer son, Tim, attributes MJ as the driving force that led him into dance at an early age. As a boy, Tim performed (in appropriate costume) a number of MJ's songs/dances on stage and could even moon-walk! I'm quite biased, I know, but he was very good at mimicking MJ and did receive a lot of acclaim for these performances.
I should also mention that Tim and I saw MJ perform in Brisbane in 1996 (when Tim was 13) and I will never forget that night. Tim dressed up in a neat black and white outfit (with black hat) and so looked the part - he revelled in the concert and was just so excited leading up to it! I have to add that this concert rates as one of the best I've ever been to, falling in just behind LC's concerts, the Sydney 'Came So Far For Beauty' concert and Monsieur Camembert's tribute concert [for obvious reasons ]! It was a total performance package that was so entertaining and enthralling, in a different way to LC, of course, but in its own right, exceptional!
Anyway, I pay homage to MJ for what he meant and contributed, not only to Tim, but to millions of fans around the world and I also hope this gentle "troubled soul" has found some sort of peace, or at least rests in peace.
Cheers
Andrew
'I cannot give the reasons
I only sing the tunes
The sadness of the seasons
The madness of the moons'
~ Mervyn Peake ~
Men, it was kind of shocking to hear about this, but I can't deny the fact that you could see this coming. I really don't want to know what sort of stuff he put on his skin to get that way, and plus, well, he must have damaged somehow his respiratory system somehow with all those surgeries, just think about how many problems overall do flat-faced dogs have because of this breeding.
He was by far one of the greatest music geniuses of this time, but not because of that i will overlook the fact that he clearly had serious issues, and I have real doubts about all those issues with kids.
The fact is, that if he died maybe early, if he was maybe miserable, it was everyones fault. Mine, yours, his family's, his fans, etc. We consume these people, and he threw himself towards the crowd. He made the right moves, and he won the top of the world, he assumed that role, but he didn't realized that he was becoming the king of the mountain in the process. We turned him into the depositary of those times in our lives where we don't want to ruminate about what's flawed about what we have already done at the moment. And we rather choose to avoid the dark matters dazzling ourselves with a man that goes backwards by going forward; by leather-clad mens enjoying the beauty and drunkenness of the evaporating youth his girls provide; or the questionable whims of very rich girls. The entertainers are there to let us consume the time we don't feel like investing in introspections with their antics, their glitter, and the best part of all, their decadence. But we never feel like going into those darkness. And another life is lost before it has the time to realize what is it doing. That's the problem with the entertainers in the global culture, that one who Michael Jackson inaugurated; we consume it too fast, it's like, well.... like mediocre sex maybe.
And since this is a Leonard Cohen forum, there you have it, that's the thing with real art, that is different from sheer entertainment... it also saves you know.
I'd also really like to know what does LC thinks about MJ, it would be pretty much interesting that all we have heard by now. Interesting not only considering what an intellectual he is, but also considering the generational gap and the quite so and not so opposite circuits each moves.
Just to add one thing, Leonard, don't you dare please to leave us any time soon. Please stick around for as long as you can.
The dirty little cunt summed up whats fucked up with society.
His old man was a complete wanker that took the belt to him and completely fucked him up. If he had lived in the `real world`he`d have just been the weird freak that lived in the ground floor flat off dog shit street that parents told their kids not to go near but sadly he had a voice and a few moves that gave him a worldwide audience and a license to build Disney World in his own backyard.
Just like the sexualisation of kiddies in adverts and Britney Spears video's society says "oh...hang on a second, thats a bit near the mark" but gives them "artistic license" fuckers gave Whacko "artistic license" and then some...because...its Michael and he's just `a little bit odd.`
Fuck his music, fuck his own personal angst, not one single one of us would let the slimy little cunt babysit our kids and the quicker the twat gets buried the better.
Faithfully I know the cost of tickets we will all soon be homeless.
My feelings are inextricably linked, not so much to his material as such, but to the fact that my dancer/choreographer son, Tim, attributes MJ as the driving force that led him into dance at an early age. 
As a boy, Tim performed (in appropriate costume) a number of MJ's songs/dances on stage and could even moon-walk! I'm quite biased, I know, but he was very good at mimicking MJ and did receive a lot of acclaim for these performances. 
