“Sometimes each of us would be thinking “Oh god, I know where we’re going,” and both of us would race to get there first.”—Mike Nichols

Over the weekend, Tara and I watched a 15-year-old PBS America Masters documentary on the incredibly brilliant 50s/60s comedy duo of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Titled Nichols & May: Take Two, it features thoughtful discussions of the pair’s work by the likes of Steve Martin, Jules Feiffer and Tom Browkaw. What made the hour-long piece so especially exciting to watch was, well, finally getting to watch them do these great routines that I have listened to over and over and over again on records. Most of it was new to me (visually speaking, that is) and I was just ecstatically happy to see it. (Not to mention how absolutely stunning Elaine May was! Wow! What a fox!)

When I was a kid I absolutely adored Nichols & May. As Steve Martin remarked about their albums, there was really something quite musical about their comedy that leant it to repeated listens. Robin Williams compares the dance of their wit to a beautiful ballet. What they created together wasn’t really like anything else, either before or since. Their comedy albums weren’t stand-up comedy at all, of course. Nichols & May were actors and writers performing their own material, often the result of improvisations (a hallmark of their live act). Both of them have really great, expressive voices and their classic routines are absolute perfection, as honed and as precise as language can be used. Much of their material begins with seemingly random, meandering or nervous conversation that eventually comes into sharp focus. They were great at portraying pompous idiots with nothing to say and no qualms whatsoever about saying it. Although hardly risque, Nichols & May were “grown up” and probably the first satirists to include riffs on post-coital pillow talk and adultery in their repertoire during the Eisenhower administration.

A large part of the appeal for ardent Nichols and May fans was the cultural signifiers they—well, their stuffy, insecure characters—would casually drop into their routines. College-educated, upscale fans who made the high IQ duo such a success on Broadway would feel a part of the “in crowd” when presented with material referencing Béla Bartók or Nietzsche, although no one was exactly excluded by their brainy comedy, either. Routines about phone calls from foreign countries, getting ripped off by funeral homes and psychotically nagging mothers could be enjoyed by anyone, but the high falutin’ grad school references were the dog whistles that garnered them their staunchest fans. Amusing to consider that these “sophisticates” were usually the very people skewered most savagely by the double-edged sword of Nichols & May’s humor.

Often, it was Elaine May’s characters who set about psychologically torturing the hapless male creations of straight-man Nichols. Gerald Nachman relates several examples of May’s emasculating wit in a pre-feminist era in his book Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s. One tale is told of May getting wolf whistles and noisy kisses from two guys who followed her down the street. “What’s the matter? Tired of each other?” she asked. One of them yelled back, “Fuck you!” and she fired back, “With WHAT?

Get a copy of Nichols & May: Take Two at Mod Cinema.
 
Below: “Aren’t you even curious about me?” “No, not at all.”
 

 
In their famous “Telephone” sketch, Nichols plays a hapless man, stranded and down to his final dime, trying to use a pay phone with disastrous results. May plays three different telephone operators, none about to give him his “alleged die-yum” back. To SEE them do this… Ah! I was in heaven:
 

 
Much, much more classic Nichols & May comedy after the jump…

 
This is a new upload to Youtube and it came with no description. I’m reticent to post something without a bit of background on what I’m sharing, but this kind of speaks for itself.

The world’s biggest Scott Walker fan? He’s certainly got a fascinating collection.

Update: Dangerous Minds readers are schooling me today. The Walker mega-fan is Arnie Potts and this clip is an extra on the DVD release of the Scott Walker documentary 30th Century Man. Thanks Plastic Palace Alice for the heads up.

Harry Muskee of Cuby And The Blizzards with Van Morrison
 
In March of 1967, after leaving Them, Morrison toured the Netherlands with Dutch group Cuby And The Blizzards as his backup band.

Here they are doing “Mystic Eyes” in a video clip that I wish were longer.

Update: Dangerous Minds reader Knickerbocker noted that the audio portion of the video is taken from the original 1965 release of “Mystic Eyes” by Them. Good ears, Knickerbocker.
 

 
In 1974 heavy duty German classical label Deutsche Grammophon issued a 3LP over-view of European improvised music (pictured above) featuring a full two sides each from a French combo (New Phonic Art), A British trio (Iskra 1903 led by guitar titan Derek Bailey) and the focus of this blog posting, the German ad hoc ensemble known simply as Wired. The truly notable thing about Wired is that it featured super-producer Conny Plank conducting the entire very delicate and minimal affair from his mixing desk. The other players here are Harry Partch disciple Mike Ranta on percussion, guitarist Karl-Heinz Böttner on stringed instruments and Mike Lewis on Hammond organ. Have a leisurely listen to the entire thing, it’s quite a lovely and slowly unfolding bit of primitive soundscaping :
 

Wired Side One
 

Wired Side Two
 

 
The reason I sought out the above rarity is that the above rather handsome box-set has just been released. Recorded a mere month after recording the Wired LP by the same group (minus Böttner) but previously unreleased, this sounds pretty wonderful. Then again nearly everything Conny Plank had a hand in is worthy of celebration.
 
Much thanks to Dave Madden !

 
Kool Herc, the legendary Jamaican-born DJ famous for “inventing hip hop” during South Bronx dance parties in the early 1970s is ill, and in dire need of financial assistance. According to a story that’s appeared in places from The Source’s website to The Guardian, Kool Herc, now 55,  was discharged from a Bronx hospital yesterday, but still needs desperate help to pay for his medical bills. The cause of his illness has not been disclosed and it’s unclear whether he’s had the needed surgery or not.

Armed only with dual copies of James Brown and Jimmy Castor Bunch albums—not to mention a couple copies of “Bongo Rock”—and as many turntables as his mixer would allow for, DJ Kool Herc was the first turntablist to isolate the instrumental “break beat” from hard funk songs and turn them into five to ten-minute long extended workouts for the “break” dancers at his parties. Later these same beats became the musical backdrop for the toasters of the nascent “rap” scene. Kool Herc’s style on multiple decks was soon copied by Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa.

Donations for DJ Kool Herc can be sent to Kool Herc Productions PO Box 20472 Huntington Station, NY 11746

Below, DJ Kool Herc explains how he came up with the idea for isolating the break beat, in the process helping to birth hip hop culture.
 

 
An uncredited photo taken of William S. Burroughs and an “up and coming” young Madonna during the author’s big 70th birthday bash at the Limelight nightclub in New York, February 1984.

You have to love this example of her insane chutzpah. He probably had no idea who she was, but there she is, right in the middle of it! I also like the detail of the joint being passed. What a great photo.

 
Composer Milton Babbitt died yesterday at the ripe old age of 94. I have always adored his piece Ensembles For Synthesizer, composed from 1962-64 on the guargantuan RCA Mark II synthesizer for which he was an official composer/consultant. I include that piece here from the 1967 album New Electronic Music from Leaders of the Avant-Garde which is a toweringly great slab of classic experimental music. Seek it out !
 

Part One
 

Part Two
 

 
And because it’s so totally great, here is the John Cage piece from the same LP: Variations 2 as performed with brutal precision on amplified piano by the great David Tudor.
 

Part One
 

Part Two
 

Part Three

 
As bewildered analysts on the sidelines wring their hands over “what’s next in Egypt,” Al Jazeera continues to very simply shame the American news media with regards reporting on the region’s issues.

Jane Dutton, the host of the network’s “Inside Story” show, does what we used to call actual insightful reporting by bringing into AJ’s Cairo studio Egyptian activists Gigi Ibrahim, Amr Wakd and Wael Khalil and, remotely, Tunisian graduate student activist Fidi Al Hammami. And while these kids may represent a somewhat elite and educated part of the thousands on the streets, Al Jazeera goes a long way here beyond the usual news formula of interviewing either excited guys in the middle of a protest yelling at the camera or annoyingly hedging news “contributors.”

At around the 18-minute mark, Khalil makes the crucial remark that puts the American punditry’s narcissistic agonizing into perspective: “We don’t need the US.” In short, Uncle Sam, the EU and the international community are rather irrelevant to this struggle. The paradigm’s changed, and the old powers need to get over themselves.
 

 
Mutamassik’s 13-track That Which Death Cannot Destroy was one of 2010’s most under-recognized releases in underground music. It could also turn out to be a brilliant soundtrack to the current anti-authoritarian street-fight spreading throughout Egypt, the Maghreb and the Middle East.

Even better—the whole album is offered for FREE download.

Mutamassik (meaning “stronghold” and “tenacity” in Arabic) is the nom de tune of Giulia Lolli, a half-Italian/half-Egyptian composer and DJ with a background that’s reflected in her splintered internationalist musical style. Born in Italy and raised in the American Rustbelt, Lolli went to New York City in time to swoop quickly in and out of the illbient scene of the mid-‘90s before heading out to Cairo, and finally landing up in what she terms a “CAVEmen-style” existence with her husband, Brooklyn guitarist Morgan Craft, and child in Tuscany.

Lolli has described her music as “Sa’aidi Hardcore & Baladi Breakbeats: Egyptian & Afro-Asiatic Roots mixed with the head-nod of hip-hop & the bass and syncopation of hardstep.” (The term “Sa’aidi” can refer to people of Upper [central-eastern] Egypt, and can also be interpreted as “ascending”; “Baladi” refers to traditional, oft-rural Arabic folk music.)

With that said, That Which Death… sees Lolli lay down a ritualized heavily percussive base over which she smears rumbling bass tones, cranky cello, evocative samples and scratches, various electronic instrumentation, and her own subliminal vocals to create an otherworldy brand of liberationist marching music.
 

 
Get That Which Death Cannot Destroy free…

 
Amusing conversation from The Today Show between Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel discussing “What is the Internet?” back in 1994. Their faces look so perplexed and confused. Where the FOK was Al Gore? 

 
(via TDW)