Every so often, I make my sister a mix CD.
I call it the 'Beck Live' mix - it dates back to the days before Ethel had a functional stereo, and the only musical entertainment anyone got when they rode with me was Beck Radio. I took any and all requests, and made an honest attempt at all of them (except the mysteriously frequent, 'Would you please just stop singing?' Have I mentioned that I got kicked out of the school band for being too unmusical to play even a triangle? Because I did.).
Anyhow, my sister hated it more than anyone else, which is really saying something, and so I naturally redoubled my musical efforts every time she got in the car with me. Boy, did she hate it. It was great. I'd sing some Rocky Horror tunes, and she'd ask if I knew anything else, and so I'd throw in some Beatles or Proclaimers or something - before singing my favourite song from The Wizard of Oz, first as Dorothy, then as the Munchkins, then as Glinda. "The wind began to swish, the house, to twitch ..." It was mostly old stuff, because I'm hopeless with lyrics - worse than with triangles, if you can believe that - and I've heard the old stuff long enough to remember it better. It's fun to improvise, but it takes a little too much concentration (when you're as hung up on rhyming as I am) when driving if you only know five words and have to make up the rest.
When my sister got her licence, I made her the first Beck Live CD by way of congratulations, full of my favourite singing songs, and have been repeating the tradition at irregular intervals ever since. I try to put in some stuff she knows, some stuff she should know, and some stuff she's massively unlikely to know. Last time the obscure stuff - at least when you're my sister, who is even less up on her music than I am - was from Nouvelle Vague, some 1930s big band stuff and some B-grade movie theme songs. The aim with these random selections is, although I'll deny it if this ever gets out (she says, publishing it on the internet), to see if I can shock her so much she crashes the car again. Not hard, or anything, I don't want her killed or anything like that. Just enough for dramatic impact.
She's coming to see me in a couple of weeks, and so I'm starting work on another CD for her. I'm sort of trying to make a themed Beck Live album, and my theme is genderfucking. I want to see how long it'll take her to figure it out. The songs can be about genderfucking, or by genderfucking performers, or, as in one example, from a musical about genderfucking but not mention genderfucking at all. Confusion, confusion is the aim here. I've got about forty-five minutes so far, and suggestions are welcome. (I'm thinking Antony and the Johnsons are called for, but I don't have any.)
Of course, should I fail to make up 80 minutes of obscure music with an obscure theme, I'll cobble together another Beck Live mix from the usual dosh that makes up Beck Live mixes, and I'm sure it'll be fine. I've told her that, by way of bribery, I'll copy the Dresden Dolls bootlegs I've just come, very happily, into possession of, and I suspect she'll be too blown away by the French version of Amsterdam - as I was - to care what else I give her. That cover leaves David Bowie's in the dust ... and almost makes me wish I hadn't failed French in year seven.
I call it the 'Beck Live' mix - it dates back to the days before Ethel had a functional stereo, and the only musical entertainment anyone got when they rode with me was Beck Radio. I took any and all requests, and made an honest attempt at all of them (except the mysteriously frequent, 'Would you please just stop singing?' Have I mentioned that I got kicked out of the school band for being too unmusical to play even a triangle? Because I did.).
Anyhow, my sister hated it more than anyone else, which is really saying something, and so I naturally redoubled my musical efforts every time she got in the car with me. Boy, did she hate it. It was great. I'd sing some Rocky Horror tunes, and she'd ask if I knew anything else, and so I'd throw in some Beatles or Proclaimers or something - before singing my favourite song from The Wizard of Oz, first as Dorothy, then as the Munchkins, then as Glinda. "The wind began to swish, the house, to twitch ..." It was mostly old stuff, because I'm hopeless with lyrics - worse than with triangles, if you can believe that - and I've heard the old stuff long enough to remember it better. It's fun to improvise, but it takes a little too much concentration (when you're as hung up on rhyming as I am) when driving if you only know five words and have to make up the rest.
When my sister got her licence, I made her the first Beck Live CD by way of congratulations, full of my favourite singing songs, and have been repeating the tradition at irregular intervals ever since. I try to put in some stuff she knows, some stuff she should know, and some stuff she's massively unlikely to know. Last time the obscure stuff - at least when you're my sister, who is even less up on her music than I am - was from Nouvelle Vague, some 1930s big band stuff and some B-grade movie theme songs. The aim with these random selections is, although I'll deny it if this ever gets out (she says, publishing it on the internet), to see if I can shock her so much she crashes the car again. Not hard, or anything, I don't want her killed or anything like that. Just enough for dramatic impact.
She's coming to see me in a couple of weeks, and so I'm starting work on another CD for her. I'm sort of trying to make a themed Beck Live album, and my theme is genderfucking. I want to see how long it'll take her to figure it out. The songs can be about genderfucking, or by genderfucking performers, or, as in one example, from a musical about genderfucking but not mention genderfucking at all. Confusion, confusion is the aim here. I've got about forty-five minutes so far, and suggestions are welcome. (I'm thinking Antony and the Johnsons are called for, but I don't have any.)
Of course, should I fail to make up 80 minutes of obscure music with an obscure theme, I'll cobble together another Beck Live mix from the usual dosh that makes up Beck Live mixes, and I'm sure it'll be fine. I've told her that, by way of bribery, I'll copy the Dresden Dolls bootlegs I've just come, very happily, into possession of, and I suspect she'll be too blown away by the French version of Amsterdam - as I was - to care what else I give her. That cover leaves David Bowie's in the dust ... and almost makes me wish I hadn't failed French in year seven.
posted by beck at 9:34 pm
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