Celebrating the birthday of the late Shane MacGowan of The Pogues on today’s playlist.
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 10-8-24
“The idea (for ‘Celebration’) originated while I was reading the Quran. I came across a passage describing God creating Adam, and the angels were rejoicing and singing praises. That led me to compose the basic chords and the line, ‘Everyone around the world, come on, let’s celebrate.’”
– Ronald Bell (a/k/a Khalis Bayyan) of Kool & the Gang
Robert “Kool” Bell (a/k/a Muhammad Bayyan), the only surviving original member of Kool & the Gang, was born on this date in 1950. Let’s celebrate!
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Your (Almost) Daily Playlist: 11-19-23
Inspired by an unhoused woman who would sing gospel songs in front of a Washington, DC hotel, the familiar refrain of “la da dee la da da” in Crystal Waters’ “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” was meant as a temporary placeholder until the real lyrics were written. Here’s to writers block! Crystal Waters was born on this date in 1961. A couple of her tracks are included on today’s playlist.
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It’s Ini Kamoze’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!
I’m reading NLP: The Essential Guide to Neuro-Linguistic Programming, subtitled Creating the Person You Want to Be, by Tom Hoobyar and Tom Dotz with Susan Sanders. The book teaches one how to think, as opposed to what to think.
Of the many exercises in the book is one the authors call “Creating a Well-Formed Outcome.” You list things you want and answer six questions related to each want. Within those six questions is an exploration of “meta-outcomes.” To explore the meta-outcomes, one must keep asking what will happen if I achieve this goal.
For example, one of my goals is to have a leaner physique. Using this exercise, I say “When I am leaner, I’m more confident. When I am more confident, more guys will be attracted to me. If more guys are attracted to me, I’ll date more often. If I date more often, I’ll end up with a boyfriend. If I have a boyfriend, I’ll have someone with whom to watch movies, dance, and share other activities I enjoy. If I do more activities I enjoy, I’ll be “in the flow” more often. If I am in the flow more often, my happiness will increase.
Another goal I have is to work with more clients. If I work with more clients, I’ll make more money. If I have more money, I can partake more often in the activities I enjoy. If I partake more often in the activities I enjoy, I’ll be in the flow more often. If I am in the flow more often, my happiness will increase.
Now you try it. What is a goal you have? Keep asking yourself what will happen if you achieve each part. If you don’t end with me being happier, you’re doing it wrong. Start over!
Something that makes me happy is dancing. Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour. Today happens to be the birthday of John Lennon. As he never hit the Billboard dance charts, we’ll kick off this week’s party with someone else whose birthday is today, Ini Kamoze. More accurately, today is the 58th birthday of Cecil Campbell, who later changed his name to Ini Kamoze. Here are twenty songs you can hotstep to.
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It’s Pete Shelley’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!
In 1981, Pete Shelley reached #14 on the US Dance chart with “Homosapien,” a keyboard-centric single that sounded much different than his work as the lead singer of punk band The Buzzcocks.
“Homosapien” did not get much airplay in Shelley’s native England, as the BBC took exception to the lyric “Homo superior in my interior.” Shelley said the song was not intended as a “gay song;” rather, it’s about homosapiens falling in love with other homosapiens. That may be so, but the opening line is “I’m the shy boy, you’re the coy boy / And you know we’re homosapien, too,” so there is more than a little homo in this sapien.
Shelley lives as the homosapien of his song, eschewing labels because “there doesn’t seem to be a word for ‘having relationships with people,’” regardless of gender, which is where Shelley sees himself.
It’s Friday and I need to dance! It’s also Pete Shelley’s birthday (he’s 60), so we’ll kick off our dance party with “Homosapien.”
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Punks And Lesbians
In the early days of London’s punk rock movement, around 1976, there were no punk clubs per se, so the punks needed somewhere to congregate where they can be who they are and dress how they dress without fear of being hassled. They found such a place at Club Louise, a lesbian bar that also welcomed gay men and punks, just off Oxford Street in London’s Soho district. Billy Idol hung out there every night. Other regulars included Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, Paul Cook, Siouxsie Sioux, Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, members of The Clash and members of The Slits. Writes Billy Idol in his recently-released autobiography Dancing With Myself, “[Louise’s] was a much-needed haven. Back then, the way we dressed would have started a riot if we had set foot in any normal club or pub.”
Idol discusses Louise’s as ground zero for the punks’ plans. “We all congregated there, drinking and socializing, plotting our rebellion. It was our midnight meeting place, our sanctuary. We all walked the same path at that time. Many of the classic-rock bands talked about musicianship but had little to offer us, the disenfranchised and disenchanted… As the gay ladies danced and loved one another, we devised our plans and consolidated a movement. By being like-minded, we ruled the night. We would rock London to its core. The lesbian bar was our spiritual ‘upper room,’ and we, the new aristocracy of the poor, knighted with fire, sallied forth and followed Johnny Rotten into the unknown!”
New York City’s punk scene was similar. Club 82, a drag queen/transsexual bar, was one of the few public places where punks could perform in the early to mid-1970s. The club always welcomed the outcasts, so the punks were part of the family. Other gay bars opened their doors to punks as well. These not only were places that accepted those who are “different;” gay bars also were places where people could experiment with their appearance.
Idol explains the bond between the punk rockers and the LGBT populations by quoting a figure from American history. “Benjamin Franklin once offered advice to his fellow revolutionaries: ‘We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.’ We were a small group of people bored with the repeated clichés of modern life and its stagnant, putrid waters. That is what brought us — and ultimately bonded us — together.”
Today Billy Idol turns 59 years old. Here are twenty career highlights.
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