Friday Influences Thread 05.14.10

[Stackabones]

What has influenced you as a songwriter in the past ... or since the last FIT?

 

*

 

Lately, I've been checking out Josh Ritter. Exceptional lyricist and the kind of songwriter whose songs sneak up on you after a couple of listens.

 

 

Your friends ask about me you say I can be found

 

With the cheap romance novels with their spines battered down

 

Oh the heart has no bones you say so it won

[Mcfontio]

Opeth, one of the couple metal bands I still listen to. They write wickedly good songs. Not to mention they're very good at their instruments... (this one has no cookie monster to it)

[YOUTUBE]FBS7ejV9qEk[/YOUTUBE]

[Lee Knight]

Any one dig Bob Schneider? Austin guy... I just love this song. I love a lot of his songs, but this one, Metal & Steel.

 

I am metal and I am be steel

And I don't mind cause I don't feel a thing

 

There's something about the melody and his prosody that just hits me right. It's a quality I always strive for ( I said strive). To have the lyric bounce and prod and provoke rhythmically on top of a great melody to better get the point through. I think he does it wonderfully here...

 

[YOUTUBE]JQ9BPeOJ6zI[/YOUTUBE]

[Lee Knight]

 

 

 

Wow... I didn't expect that. That's really good.

[Lee Knight]

The Josh Ritter... it took a couple of listens to get into the streamlined simplicity. It's cool. Nice pick.

[Mcfontio]

I get a distinctly Dave Matthew's vibe from that Bob Schneider tune. I'm a little confused by that because he doesn't even really sound like him. Cool song though!

 

Who knew jazz could rock so hard?!?

[YOUTUBE]ahJCERfeehY[/YOUTUBE]

[blue2blue]

Davy Jones as the Artful Dodger -- with Georgia Brown as the lovely but doomed Nancy in the original London cast of Oliver:

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Georgia as Nancy singing a song of love and devotion to the thoroughly repugnant and brutish Bill Sykes (played by a glowering and menacing Oliver Reed in the movie) -- who will, before the course of the musical's story, bludgeon Nancy to death so brutally that his own, swaggering, sharp-toothed pit bull will turn on him:

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"My Name" -- delivered by Gregory Lee Harrell as the murderous Mr Sykes (watch the volume on this cam-mic video):-bzBrwdY-GA

 

 

 

Oliver gets pretty dark -- but it's a walk in the park on a spring day compared to the very, very black comedy, Sweeney Todd... this clip from the movie (which will likely quickly disappear due to IP concerns) shows the pluses and minuses of casting non-singers Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter in the leads... the acting is sharp and rich but the singing is often marred by obvious vocal pitch correction... (the '82 cable TV version has far superior musical performances but a stage play with cams -- worth seeing both). Still, it's better than seeing it dubbed in by ghost singers -- no question. Even through the Melodyne (which is used here with not nearly so much clumsiness as so much radio fodder), Depp's vocal performances growl with menace, hatred for the world that is, and longing for a world that can never be again... It might be the blackest of musical 'comedies' -- but it's an oddly affecting emotional rollercoaster ending in a nightmarish finale.

 

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[Lee Knight]

The Sweeney Todd song is so good... the dual purposes of the 2 characters. So well done.

 

Leave me...

[blue2blue]

There is some really powerful music in the play... and the story is... pointed... I think the only thing that really doesn't work for me is the paper-cutout quality of the characters in the young love subplot... they seem to be plot pawns there for strategic purposes. But that can be forgiven because of the complexity and power of the central character and his peculiar and mostly tragic relationships with the women in his life. And it is hilarious even as it mounts to its extraordinarily dark conclusion. (If anyone hasn't seen it, let's just say that the end makes Hamlet look like it was written by Ogden Nash.)

 

BTW... I'm so torn by the performance by Johnny Depp, which is so good in so many ways... and, for a non-singer singing a role clearly designed for a neo-operatic baritone, he does pretty good -- he sort of seems to channel David Bowie... but the tricky parts are clearly Melodyned (at least it wasn't a clumsy Auto-Tuning but there is something about Melodyne artifacts that, while usually a lot more subtle than A-T artifacts, just seem more pervasive... you're not as likely to get the sore-thumb moments -- but it seems to color and change whole phrases is subtly disturbing ways).

 

Check out this from the '82 video of the stage play, with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn -- not as inappropriately sleek and sexy as Bonham-Carter and Depp, by a stretch -- but, brother, can Hearn sing. No studio tricks necessary.

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Sorry about the abrupt cut-off. This is part of the whole thing chopped up into 10 min segments for YT.

 

 

I know I've hit the Sweeney Todd thing a few times lately... it's just been on my mind for some reason... and the Oliver clips made me think about it even more... I thought it might be nice to give the kiddies something in color with someone they could relate to, as well.