It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

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In 2003, Rhino Entertainment moved me from New York City to Los Angeles to head up their Licensing department. I miss Manhattan’s energy and fashion sense and anything-at-any-hour way of life, but most of all, I miss my friends. And I miss our Bad Movie Days.

Not only do I love a good bad song; I also enjoy a good bad movie, as do a core group of my friends. We would meet at either my place or Kathy’s place every few Sundays and stay in, even if it was beautiful outside, and enjoy Glitter or Staying Alive or Body of Evidence, followed by a second feature, usually Showgirls.

Unlike a bad song, which I can enjoy in my solitude, a bad movie usually is more enjoyable with company. I’m not sure I would be able to sit through Skyscaper, in which Anna Nicole Smith starred as a hostage negotiator, if I didn’t have my friends with me to razz the screen, particularly during the scenes where Anna Nicole walked past an office and the film would dissolve to a flashback sequence of the time she had sex on that office’s desk.

I can enjoy a bad musical on my own. While my friends enjoyed Grease 2, with its extended production number about bowling, they were not as enamored as I am of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Still, when I watched Mamma Mia on HBO alone in my Los Angeles condo, I knew my friends would share my joy at this amazing cinematic feat, particularly when Pierce Brosnan sang “S.O.S.”

One of my favorite bad movies is Can’t Stop the Music. It stars the Village People. I’ll let that sink in before I go on. Ready? It also stars Bruce Jenner, in a cropped t-shirt and Daisy Dukes. And Steve Guttenberg and Valerie Perrine, with “special guests” (as they are billed in the credits) The Ritchie Family. The Ritchie Family, whose hits were “Best Disco in Town” and “Brazil,” get “special guest” billing. That’s how amazing this movie is. But wait, there’s more! The film was directed by Nancy Walker. Ida Morgenstern. Rosie, the Bounty Paper Towel shill. That Nancy Walker. Now you know you’re in for a treat.

Before I get into the movie, let me make clear that I LOVE The Village People, and not in a I love bad music way. I unabashedly enjoy their music. Not just the hits singles; there are Village People album cuts that have five stars in my iTunes library. I love this movie’s theme song.

As for the rest of the movie, well…. It’s sort of about the formation of the Village People, though 90 minutes into it you may ask “Will there be a plot anytime soon?” Then you’ll ask “Why is a Village People movie more than 90 minutes long?” We see the group’s auditions. I would have hired the guy in the blue jumpsuit who sang “Macho Man.” That said, I can’t deny the leatherman, whose profession we learn is toll collector at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (talk about a macho man!), sings a mean “Danny Boy.” We see the guys shoot a commercial for milk. We see..I’m going to lift a line from this movie’s Wikipedia entry – “Initially reluctant, Helen seduces Steve with her kreplach and before long they’re negotiating the T-shirt merchandising for the Japanese market.” We see them perform for an ecstatic crowd in San Francisco (oh, um, spoiler alert. That’s how it ends.) Best of all, we see a “Y.M.C.A.” production number as envisioned by Busby Berkeley and Esther Williams while vacationing on Fire Island.

Every Friday is dance music day on Tunes du Jour. Today we kick off the playlist with the timeless “Y.M.C.A.” Because it is still LGBT Pride Month, I made our dance party extra gay. Twirl!

Ringo + Lily 002

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

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Ringo + Lily 002
“I love to have that conflict of something sounding so sweet but actually being really quite dark.”

That quote from Lily Allen summarizes one of my favorite attributes of her music – sunny melodies coupled with not-quite-sunny lyrics, a juxtaposition that makes for some wonderfully subversive pop tunes.

The song that put her on the map, “Smile,” exemplifies this. It’s a catchy song – upbeat, major chords. Lily wrote it about an ex-boyfriend who was cheating on her. Then the ex got dumped by his new girlfriend and he called Lily to console him, which brings us to the awesome chorus: “At first when I see you cry, it makes me smile. Yeah, it makes me smile / At worse I feel bad for a while, but then I just smile. I go ahead and smile.”

“Smile” appeared on Allen’s debut album Alright, Still, released in 2006. Her follow-up album, 2009’s It’s Not Me, It’s You, contains another brilliant example of this style, this time aimed at a well-known public figure.

The song was initially released by Allen on her MySpace page in 2008 as “Guess Who, Batman.” The song is not about anyone connected with Batman, but rather, someone whose initials match the first letter of each word in this title. If you’re still not sure, I’ll let Lily give you a clue: “It was originally written about this fucking arsehole who used to be the President of the United States of America. His name is George W. Bush.”

She made that comment after Bush left office and after the song was released with an additional verse and a new title, “Fuck You.”

Among the things for which she takes Bush to task is his perceived homophobia: “So you say it’s not okay to be gay / Well, I think you’re just evil.”

Shortly after the second album’s release an Australia guy with the YouTube moniker steviebeebishop created a video for the song that featured members of the L, G, B and T populations and their supporters around the world lip-synching the tune. It became a phenomenon that spread to other countries, with lip-synched versions emanating from countries such as France, Croatia, New Zealand, Hungary, Mexico and Brazil.

The song was no longer specifically about Bush, but directed towards anyone who expresses anti-gay sentiments. As steviebeebishop explained when he posted his video:

theres a disgusting amount of hate on the internet (especially on youtube!) directed at minority groups (especially the LGBT community) so i was inspired to organize this collab video. i never set out to change the world. i did not make this for the gay haters to see. i wanted to make something light hearted and funny for the victims of gay hate, to teach them to brush off the hate and stand strong and confident as who they are. you’re not alone! stevie loves you 🙂

Today is Lily Allen’s 29th birthday. As Friday is dance day at Tunes du Jour, we’ll kick off our playlist with a remix of “Fuck You.” By the way, Lily’s third album, Sheezus, is out today.

Winston + Erasure 003

It’s Andy Bell’s Birthday And I Need To Dance!

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Winston + Erasure 003
I want to go back to 1984. Not the year. The party.

In 1993 I spent Friday nights at Crowbar, a tiny venue at 339 E. 10th Street in New York City. The weekly party was called 1984. Admission was $3. The music was new wave and pop, primarily from the 80s. Crowbar was about the size of my studio apartment, but that didn’t stop the proprietors from squeezing in a couple hundred folks who wanted to dance to Madonna and New Order and Culture Club.

Because the place was jam-packed, dancing consisted of nodding your head. There was no room to move your legs or arms. There was no air circulation, so one worked up a sweat just standing still. It was great fun, getting lost in the music. Even songs I don’t like were fun at Crowbar. When they played the rare song I couldn’t get into, I would think “If there’s a fire, we’re all going to die. There’s no way for most of us to get out.” Good thing I liked most of the songs!

Mayor Giuliani had the same thought. Not about how great Pet Shop Boys are, but that the place was a fire hazard. He had Crowbar shut down. The party didn’t stop, though. 1984 moved to the more spacious Pyramid Club on Avenue A and was just as much fun, maybe even more so being now one can actually move to the music.

One band that got a lot of play at the party was Erasure. The duo’s singer, Andy Bell, was one of the very few openly gay pop stars in the eighties. 1984 was a gay party (though non-gays were welcome), and the guys who went to Crowbar and then The Pyramid on Friday nights hailed Andy as one of their heroes, in an era when few celebrities were out.

Erasure had two crossover hits in the US. The first was “Chains of Love.” To the general public it was a catchy ditty. To the gay population it was an anthem. In an era when many media outlets portrayed gay and AIDS as automatically connected, fear was rampant. Bell advised listeners to not let who you love shackle you into holding back your love, your compassion, your pursuit of happiness. “Come to me, cover me, hold me. Together we’ll break these chains of love. Don’t give up.” The joy in that club when that song played, hands in the air and patrons singing along, is something I miss.

Andy Bell turns 50 today. Our Friday dance playlist is in honor of him and everyone who made 1984 the party so special.

Ringo + Lisa S 002

It’s Friday And I Need To Dance!

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Ringo + Lisa S 002
Today’s dance party kicks off with Lisa Stansfield’s “All Around the World,” a 1989 record that was a big hit all around the world, going to #1 in the U.K., Canada, Holland, Spain, Norway, Austria, and Belgium. It topped the U.S. Dance chart and R&B chart and reached #3 on the pop chart.

Lisa Stansfield turns 48 today. Her new album is entitled Seven.

Ten Facts About Björk

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1. Her last name is Guðmundsdóttir.
2. Her first album, entitled Björk, was released in December 1977 when she was twelve years old.
3. Before forming The Sugarcubes, Björk was in the bands Spit and Snot and Tappi Tikarrass. The latter is Icelandic for “Cork the bitch’s ass.”
4. When they formed The Sugarcubes, Björk was married to the band’s guitarist. They divorced and he married a woman who became the band’s keyboard player.
5. The Sugarcubes’ biggest US hit is entitled “Hit.” It spent five weeks at number one on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart.
6. Her single “Earth Intruders” reached #84 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart. It is Björk’s highest-placing single to date on that chart.
7. She wrote “Bedtime Story” for Madonna. The 1995 single was Madonna’s first to miss the US top 40 since before her breakout hit “Holiday” twelve years earlier.
8. Her performance in the motion picture Dancer in the Dark won her the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
9. Her album Medúlla is mostly a capella. One song has a piano, one a bass synthesizer, and another a gong. The remainder of the sounds is created by human vocals.
10. Today is her birthday. I don’t know if she’s smoking cigars.