Has Hedwig And The Angry Inch entered the annals of the ‘classic musical’ yet? If not, then why not?

I can’t think of another original musical from the last 10/15 years to have gained such a strong cult following and had so much niche AND crossover appeal (no mean feat considering the subject matter.) Shows with people throwing themselves around to Abba or Queen songs don’t count.

Here is a rare treat for fans of Hedwig, it’s a taping of the original cast performing the show Off-Broadway in 1999, featuring what is very obviously a star-making turn for John Cameron Mitchell. The quality’s not all that bad, and of course the music is great. Which is important for a musical. Here’s a little more info via YouTube uploader Antoine Granger (and Wikipedia):

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The text is by John Cameron Mitchell, and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The musical premiered in 1998 and has been performed throughout the world in hundreds of stage productions.

The story draws on Mitchell’s life as the son of a U.S. Army Major General who once commanded the U.S. sector of occupied West Berlin. The character of Hedwig was originally inspired by a German divorced U.S. Army wife who was a Mitchell family babysitter and moonlighted as a prostitute at her Junction City, Kansas trailer park home. The music is steeped in the androgynous 1970s glam rock era of David Bowie (who co-produced the Los Angeles production of the show), as well as the work of John Lennon and early punk godfathers Lou Reed and Iggy Pop.

The musical opened Off-Broadway at the Jane Street Theater on February 14, 1998. The theater was located in the ballroom of the Hotel Riverview, which once housed the surviving crew of the Titanic (a fact which figured in the original production). Originally directed and produced by Peter Askin, the play won a Village Voice Obie Award and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Musical. The Off-Broadway production ran for two years, and was remounted with various casts by the original creative team in Boston, Los Angeles, and London.

Songs :

“Tear Me Down”
“The Origin of Love”
“Sugar Daddy”
“The Angry Inch”
“Wig in a Box”
“Wicked Little Town”
“The Long Grift”
“Hedwig’s Lament”
“Exquisite Corpse”
“Wicked Little Town (Reprise)”
“Midnight Radio”

This is the original cast performing on stage in 1999, awesome performance if you ask me. I took the liberty to do a small noise reduction over the original source. If you liked the show I strongly advise you to also check out the movie.

 
Thanks to Zac Griffiths.

Illustration by Séamus Gallagher
 
I thought Ira Glass giving love advice was the cutest thing on Rookie, a frank website by and for teen girls. However, Thom Yorke (alongside producer Nigel Godrich) answering questions about debilitating shyness has completely lapped him (Of course he’s answering questions about debilitating shyness—they really cater the questions to the guests!)

All very sound, reassuring advice, without condescending to the kids, although I have to wonder if the summary would have highlighted their new project, Atoms For Peace, if this weren’t aimed at young teens—I’m pretty sure they could have put “Radiohead frontman” and the girls would have gotten the reference just fine.
 

 
Via Rookie

 
We lost one of THE heavy hitters of the disco/soul era on Saturday, a man who helped birth some of the greatest anthems of the 70s and 80s, but whose name will mean very little to the average Joe on the street.

Vincent Montana Jr was vibraphone player and band leader for both Philadelphia International’s MFSB and New York’s Salsoul Orchestra, outfits that, just between them, could rack up a near-definitive “Hits Of Disco” compilation. But that’s not even taking into account the hits he played on or produced for others…

“La La Means I Love You”, “TSOP (aka Theme from Soul Train)”, “Love Train”, “Me & Mrs Jones”, “Disco Inferno”, “Runaway”, “Be Thankful For What You’ve Got”, “Love Is The Message”, “Armed and Extremely Dangerous”, “Backstabbers”, “People Make The World Go Round”, “I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun” (with Nuyorican Soul), the list goes on and on.

He also had some success with his own acts Montana Sextet and the Goody Goody Orchestra, including “It Looks Like Love”, which remains one of the keystone records in the vast cannon of disco. Like Loose Joints “Is It All Over My Face” or “For The Love Of Money” by the Disco Dub Band, “It Looks Like Love” has been responsible for turning subsequent generations onto the underground/dancefloor disco sound, and rehabilitating the genre from the sea of plastic crap that almost engulfed it.

In fact, it could be argued that “It Looks Like Love” is THE definitive “disco” record, as its stylish, graceful, sexy vibe is everything disco patrons aspired to be, and the perfect soundtrack to the time machine ride back to those clubs of the late 70s and early 80s. Others may disagree, but this is the track that does it for me. I can close my eyes and I am THERE.

For that, if nothing else (though there was of course LOTS more) we salute you Vincent Montana Jr! Play those vibes, once more time…

Goody Goody “It Looks Like Love”
 

 
For more info on Vince Montana, check out this great article by the British DJ Greg Wilson.

 
Dusted off my turntable and unboxed my record collection. I plan to review vinyl re-masters and reissues in the coming months and let you know how they stack up against the original pressings.

In the past few days, I’ve been listening to my Tim Hardin records and kind of wallowing in the ache of his voice. It’s a beautifully sad thing, that voice. Presently spending time with his unheralded 1969 masterpiece, the darkly poetic Suite For Susan Moore And Damon -We Are-One, One, All In One. Combining spoken word with song, the album is an extended ode to loneliness with an autumnal vibe pierced by visions of impending apocalypse. It’s one of those dark night of the soul things that are often preludes to an awakening or death. In Hardin’s case, the album may just be the purgatorial utterances of a man in a state of perpetual twilight. Like his brother in junk, Tim Buckley, Hardin seems to be aware of death hovering over his left shoulder. The result is a kind of immediacy to every cracked wail and ragged cri du couer—a trembling supplication before annihilation. It can be both terrifying and liberating. Hardin leans a lot on love to see him through the maelstrom.

My favorite line from Suite For Susan Moore... is also a brief glimpse into Hardin’s sense of humor: “We hide the truth inside our pants. It makes a secret of romance.”

In this video, Hardin performs at Woodstock and there’s no wonder it never appeared in the feel-good documentary of the festival. His various recordings and performances of “If I were a Carpenter” mostly all have a world-weariness to them. But this Woodstock version is downright haunted and he’s so stoned and scared (he dreaded public performance) that the effect is chilling and heart wrenching… and oh so naked. Standing in front a few hundred thousand people and it’s as if he’s alone in a room… except for the stage fright and the distraction of some feedback.

There’s a lot of good quality Tim Hardin records out there at reasonable prices. I suggest you get a few, if you ain’t got ‘em already.
 

 
One of my top favorite Marc Bolan songs, the criminally obscure “Jasper C. Debussy” from The Beginning of Doves album, a 1974 compilation that collected together material recorded much earlier in his career. The version on that album clipped out a bit of how Bolan actually introduced the song, but when the CD came out it was added back.

This song never gets old for me. Listen below:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Orgasm: The Pop Art Explosion of John’s Children (featuring a pre-T. Rex Marc Bolan!)

Early Marc Bolan: Tyrannosaurus Rex perform ‘The Seal of the Seasons’

 
Grinderman slaps ‘em silly at Coachella.

My face is finished, my body’s gone
And I can’t help but think, standin’ up here
In all this applause and gazin’ down
At all the young and the beautiful
With their questioning eyes
That I must above all things love myself “

Man, this sounds fuckin’ good. Pussy deprivation can be an excellent source of inspiration.
 

 
These anti-Acid House headlines are giving me a case of the giggles. The majority of the newspaper clippings—circa late 80s—are from British tabloids The Sun and Daily Express. I don’t think they were very effective. 

All clippings were collected by Flickr user KRS-Dan.
 

 

 
More after the jump…
 

 
You know when you get fanatically obsessed by a certain song and you can play it over and over and over again, nonstop, on repeat? Well, in my case, you can add a couple of dozens “overs” to get a sense of how often I’ve recently played “Where the Wild Roses Grow,” the duet between Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue from his 1996 Murder Ballads album.

To say I’ve been playing the shit out of this song (and Murder Ballads, one of the best albums in Cave’s nearly unbroken string of musical masterpieces) for the past few days would be an understatement (just ask my wife!) but chances are that if you’ve read this far, it’s about to be stuck in your head, too.

Not to rhapsodize too much about something you can simply hit play and experience for yourself, although it’s Cave’s song and well, totally his thing, it’s Kylie who shines here. Dig how perfect her performance is. She hits it so hard and so flawlessly that you can only imagine the junkie prince of darkness jumping for joy in the recording studio when they laid this performance to tape.

He’s great, he’s Nick fucking Cave, of course, but it’s Kylie the astonishing who steals the show here. Her vocal performance as Cave’s victim sounds so pure and innocent that it gives me goosebumps. According to Cave, they did no more than three takes.Why mess with perfection?
 

 
First the stunning music video directed by Rocky Schenck. The imagery is based on the mid-19th century painting, “Ophelia” by Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851 and 1852. The painting depicts Hamlet‘s Ophelia singing in a river as she dies, and currently resides in the Tate Britain:
 

 
For her 2012 orchestral album, The Abbey Road Sessions, Minogue and Cave teamed up again to record this version of the song:
 

 
More Nick and Kylie after the jump…

Ain’t no party like a P-Funk party!
 
Calling all funkateers and cosmonauts! Wrap your peepers round this!

The history of Parilament-Funkadelic is sorely under-written. From their beginnings in 50s New Jersey, to their formative years in revolutionary 60s Detroit, from their glorious heyday in the 70s to their implosion in clouds of debt and cocaine in the early 80s, the P-Funk story is one of the most epic in all of popular music.

One Nation Under A Groove may not be perfect, but it’s a start. I guess there’s just too many people and stories surrounding the band(s) to fit into one hour-long program, it would really need to be a mini-series, but ONUAG is a great introduction, essential viewing for anyone with an interest in the more out-there elements of popular culture.

George Clinton is heavily featured, of course, as are all the original members of The Parliaments (his barbershop doo-wop group that would go on to form the vocal nucleus of the Parliafunkadelicment thang) but there’s not enough Bootsy for my liking, and synth wizard Bernie Worrell, so fundamental to the establishment of this musical empire, is notably absent.

It goes without saying that I frikin LOVE this band. Or bands, whatever. P-Funk not only made some of the outright funkiest records of all time, but they also created an aesthetic world their fans could get completely emerged in. P-Funk to me is TRUE psychedelia, made all the more powerful by reflecting the outsider-ness of the black experience in America at the time. Surely just the very nature of the Parliament-Funkadelic—mixed race, gender, age, sexuality, etc, all united by the dance and the physical act of perspiring—is he essence of the liberal dream come to life? Historical documents about P-Funk are important not just ‘cos they were so awesome, but also for the generations born after the 1970s that discover P-Funk through the filter of G-Funk. Gangsta rap strip-mined P-Funk for the grooves but casually tossed aside the outsider elements that made the band(s) so vital, replacing them instead with a kind of coked-up, uber-macho, gang-colors conformity. It’s probably a post for another day, but I think Dr Dre/Death Row/et al robbed the funk of its freak flag. 

Anyway, if you want to know more about the history of Parilament-Funkadelic (and who doesn’t?!) let me point you in the direction of the book For The Record, George Clinton And P-Funk: In Their Own Words, which is the P-Funk story told by the band and crew members themselves, with refreshingly little editorial input. I recommend it very highly, but for now, and for the newcomers, dig this:
 

 
Tiny Tim was born 81 years ago today.

In this clip from 1994, Morton Downey Jr. drops his usual maniacal bluster and manages to get up close and personal with Tiny Tim. The result is a compelling and at times grim interview.

Downey’s seedy bedroom manner lures Tiny into the confessional and the cuckolded singer doesn’t tiptoe through the tulips, he dives head first into the flower bed as he grapples with failed romance and fatherhood. The whole thing is more than just mildly creepy.

Two years after this was filmed, Tiny died of a heart attack at the age of 64. I doubt that he ever came to terms with the one thing that appeared to genuinely bewilder him in life: women.