I've been attending bits of the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival and it's been lovely. Hot, but lovely. If you live here, go.
Shocking Blue - "Hot Sand". This song stands at the edge of a roof, doing acrobatics, risking death. The distorted guitar bends and twists, the drums smack, Mariska Veres throws her hair back with a sensuous toss. Best of all is Robbie Van Leeuwen's sitar - which he played regularly on Shocking Blue releases. This was the b-side with 1969's "Venus," the band's big US smash. The track is scorching, almost burnt, and it sizzles under direct sunlight. "Hot sand / I'm walking in the hot sand / making love on the hot sand." Forceful, sexy, but with those little details - the backing oohs, the streak of sitar, - which make it much more than an intimidating flirt. [buy]
Mitch and Mickey - "When You're Next To Me". Sometimes the best kind of love song is the goofy kind, cheery head-swaying sing-alongs. And it's easy to get enthusiastic when the performers are fictional. Mitch and Mickey are bad poets, sure, but they sing with such overwhelming eagerness, such contagious pleasure. Yes, the rhymes are trite, but bo oh boy are they in love! Acoustic guitar bounce, twining voices, and the biggrinning singsong of a bulging heart: "When I'm lying next to you / I feel moonbeams burn / I see rainbows turn / into gold." [buy]
And, to follow up the William Shatner/"Common People" track, here's another bit of total weirdness - courtesy of FP/benny. "The Chipmunk Song [slowed down]". Yes, hear Simon, Theodore and Alvin at their true speed, sounding respectively like an accountant, a hot-dog vendor, and a lunatic. Put it on repeat and you'll drift gradually into madness - it's like an acid flashback to fetal languor, the surreal sounds that filtered through the uterine wall.
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I'm off to a cottage for the (Canadian, non-quebec) long-weekend, so I'll see you all again on Tuesday.
ps: funeral is the album of the year so far. will say more later.