Shame of the Otaku

Unfortunately, my post today has nothing to do with killing jokes, coincidences, or Kurt Cobain.

Though this song is by MC Frontalot, nerd rapper extraordinaire, so may qualify as a joke. One of the great things about him, is unlike rappers who sing about drugs, sex, and violence, he sings about things people like us can relate to.

Like anime, computers, and old-school gaming. And grues. Not to mention actually putting effort into the backing melody.

The Japanese singing in this song, according to the lyrics, translates as:

This world has walls, a ceiling.
Outside, cars drive by.
The sunlight roasts my flesh.
Even a bird who chases a rainbow
finds itself blindsided by a plane.

…

This world has walls, a ceiling.
With the glow of our LCD screens,
we greet the morning.
IRL, lacking the sun,
we have no need for the sky.

7-3-09 The Sisterhood of the Traveling Guitar Riff

Well, dude, the only Musical Cowinkydink that I’ve got is another Killing Joke song, Eighties…

… which sounds suspiciously like Nirvana’s Come As You Are.

Don’t believe me? Then believe Rolling Stone. They’re smart. Hell, they published Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas before it became a book. They even dared suggest that George W. Bush might be the worst president ever. That’s how smart they are.

Eighties courtesy of dentoxic. Come As You Are courtesy of 910913.

Walk Right In

I’m not sure we want that as a theme, though, Sean. That would involve me repeatedly posting disco music…

Today, I thought I’d play a song from 1963, Walk Right In, being sung by the Rooftop Singers. Don’t feel like analyzing it too much, but it’s a fun song.

Now, what you may not realize is that that was a cover of Gus Canon’s Jug Stompers. And the original version by them sounds rather different…

Of course, the Rooftop Singers were hardly the last to cover it. Doctor Hook got in on the action on this song, as well.

7-2-09 Killing Joke – The Death and Resurrection Show

Great, just what I need. A Summon Sean spell with The Bee Gee’s Greatest Hits as a material component. Just effen great.

Actually, I do see a theme developing. You post some disco, and then I post the antidote to the disco. Arms dealers do it all the time – sell the measure and the countermeasure in the same catalog. Capitalism!

Anyway, since you started a joke, I’ll finish the audience off with a killing joke. This is The Death and Resurrection Show, off Killing Joke’s 2003 self-titled album, and the lyrics are… wow. All that and power chords, too. How can you go wrong?

You know, it’s funny how George Lucas and Killing Joke can read Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces and come up with completely different interpretations. Personally, I think Killing Joke is closer to the truth than Lucas ever will be.

Courtesy of screaminglog.

To top things off, I think I’ll post the lyrics here, courtesy of LyricWiki… and probably for many of the same reasons you posted the lyrics to I Started a Joke, Shanoah.

Mark out the points
Build the pyre
Assemble different drummers
Light up the fire
Put on your masks
And animal skins
Illumination, illumination
Listen to the drums
Between each beat, each beat of the drum

O beloved Mother of Liberty
Hold me in your arms

Burn burn, burn brightly
Burn burn, burn white heat

And the day will come
Before the lights go out
Who will you turn to
Who will you turn to
Choose the crucifixion
Or Osiris slain
Recurring themes, time again

Illumination, illumination
Burn burn, burn white heat

Oh how ingenious the centuries of lies
Ezekiel’s chariots streak across the skies
Holy books and history texts forget
Because we know
Souls are recycled in the death and
Resurrection show

O beloved Mother of Liberty
Come to me

Everything I’m taught, amounts to nought
Everything I learn, the fire shall burn
Notions of myself that when I’m not
Whoever I was is now lost
Illumination, illumination

Burn burn, burn brightly
Burn burn, burn white heat

Oh how ingenious the centuries of lies
Ezekiel’s chariots streak across the skies
Holy books and history texts
Forget because we know
Souls are recycled in
The death and resurrection show

O beloved Women of Liberty
Hold me in your arms

I Started a Joke

What’s this I see? It’s Sean! I guess both of us were in a funk, just for different definitions of funk…

Though I’ll admit doing the blog solo for a bit was interesting, it’s more fun when we’re b0th here to bounce things off of each other. Even if it is more challenging.

Note to self: Sean apparently summoned by playing disco. Must experiment more with this in the future.

So, what to play after the Ramones…

Well, I was already thinking about playing this song sometime soon. It’s Robin Gibbs singing with the rest of the Bee Gees backing him.

This is one of these videos that is absolutely perfect in black and white. Color would have totally detracted from it. Robin’s voice is amazing here, the lyrics are interesting, and it all just comes together really well.

The song is I Started a Joke. As you can tell, it’s very up to interpretation, which is another part of why I like it. Besides, it’s a beautiful song, with a great delivery.

And I feel like posting the lyrics wholesale in this case:

I started a joke which started the whole world crying,
But I didn’t see that the joke was on me, oh, no.

I started to cry which started the whole world laughing;
Oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me.

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes;
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I said.

Till I finally died which started the whole world living,
Oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me.

I looked at the skies, running my hands over my eyes;
And I fell out of bed, hurting my head from things that I said.

Till I finally died which started the whole world living
Oh, if I’d only seen that the joke was on me, oh no,
That the joke was on me.

7-1-09 The Ramones – Rockaway Beach

Disco? NOOOOOOOO! Hives! Oozing hives! Swelling mucus membranes! A pounding of blood in the temples, to the beat of Lady Marmalade! Oh laws, my disco allergy!

Must… act… quickly… must… use… disco antidote… Ramones…!

Aaaaaaaaah…. much better.

Wait a minute: “They blast out the disco on the radio”? Dammit!

Courtesy of , who else?, eloiramone. As opposed to morlockramone, of course.

Oh, those of you who missed me the last week or two probably want, and deserve, an explanation for my absence. Well, my depression made a re-appearance, and it just seemed best that I turtle up for a while to get over it. The routine of posting was also starting to wear on me, too.

But it seems like the worst of both is past; hopefully there won’t be any big interruptions in my posting like that in the near future.

Daddy Cool

Well, given that I posted Mr. Funk, I suppose I should do Daddy Cool, the epitome of cheesy disco music.

This is an absolutely classic video, down to the fake orgasms the one girl does while the guy with his shirt off slides a long hard microphone between his legs.

I actually do somewhat enjoy this video, especially watching the three ladies in this video’s over the top dancing. Thing you may want to note here is that the guy and three girls shown here are not singing. They are lipsyncing, much like Milli Vanilli.

Just like that, in fact, as it’s the same German guy behind both of them, Frank Farian. He used Boney M as one of his psuedonyms.

Now, you might have been thinking “I bet it would be easy to make a really horrible cover of that song, and throw in some chicks with punk hairstyles.”

No?

Well, the group Peaches was. I wish they hadn’t.

This is a train wreck. It’s so bad I really had to play it. That sad, lonely guy in the circle reminds me of scenes from Myst for some reason. Probably the overacting.

Funny thing is it really makes me appreciate the original…

The Wolf & Mister Funk

Well, there were a lot of directions I could have gone from my last post.

I could have kept going with Wesley Willis. (And I probably should mention that when I call him schitzophrenic, he has actually been diagnosed with schitzophrenia. He doesn’t just act that way.) But I decided I’d rather stay with the funk.

So, here is a cover of Al Foster’s Night of the Wolf, being done by a group called Esperanto. As I think artificial languages are cool, and I love whatever instrument their using in this (a thermin, maybe?), I’m all for this one. And, frankly, I could listen to this all day. Looks like it was on the same album as the Hippy Skippy Moon Strut, which isn’t too suprising.

And now for a rather silly, but, more importantly, rather funky song called Dr Jackyll & Mr Funk, by Jackie McLean. Yeah, it’s silly. But admit it, you like it, cheezy as lines like:

Dreary and dull, like somebody numbed his skull…

are…

Hippy Skippy Murder

Well, continuing with the all-Shanoah-all-the-time marathon, I heard two songs recently that it occurred to me would be very inappropriate to play together. And, well, I don’t need much more invitation then that…

The first one is some funky hip jive along the line of my last post. This is the Mighty Show Stoppers, with the Hippy Skippy Moon Strut. Yes, really. Makes you want to dance, but I think large doses of caffeine or something stronger would be neccessary to keep the pace.

And, to totally change pace, here’s a song by a schizophrenic black guy named Wesley Willis. His catchy, upbeat title for this song is I Murdered Your Family. You want to guess what it’s about?

Make The Road By Walking & Working Your Body

Well, I’m assuming Seans still playing City of Heroes. With a city of superheroes and one of villians, you would think a city of normal people would be around somewhere..

So, my last post was Market Me To Children. I thought I’d follow that up with an instrumental by the Menahan Street Band called Make the Road By Walking. It’s upbeat with a nice groove to it. Puts me in a good mood, anyways.

And now that we’ve done some walking, time for some exercise. This song is Work My Body by the Leafhounds off the album Growers of Mushroom. This may be off the wall, but somehow I suspect drugs were involved in the production of this music.