NOEXTEHO

Thank you, Stephane Vigny, for making something I always wanted, but never knew I wanted.

...and it is good.



Honestly, this makes me sooooooo very happy!

Practically every version of this song is quite awesome, especially when its by the composer Jacques Brel himself, but this is my favorite, hands down. I don't know why. As I said in an earlier post, this song is at the top of my songs-I-wouldn't-mind-having-soundtrack-my-death-scene list (I blame HatChris for me having such a list, btw). I can even picture the scene: I'm laying on the ground, after having been violently shot or stabbed (no doubt I was trying to prevent some great tragedy... like Lincoln's assasination... or a lover's abduction), still and lifeless, in a puddle of my own blood. The camera is directly above, centered on my face, close up, spinning very slowly, and zooming out to reveal the whole scene, blood and bodies and shell casings and knives. Then on the "But if you stay..." bits, the camera swoops in for a close up on one of my eyes. On the next "If you go away..." bit, the camera does the slowly spinning and zooming out thing again. Repeat until song is done, then fade to white, or perhaps to a scene of a river. (Or something like that, at least. My cinematagraphic skills aren't the best.)

[To cleanse the palate of the psych-soul, or because I'm on a roll?]


It's true, Lee Marvin is fun to watch in movies. But who would have thought he'd be so fun to listen to? (Fine, I suppose you would, Mr. I've-Seen-The-Movie-This-Song-Is-From, but come on, some of us quit our jobs at the video store before we got to that one. Hell, I didn't even get all the way through the Kurosawa section...) Thanks to Mr. Marvin, I now have a new addition to my songs-I-wouldn't-mind-having-soundtrack-my-death-scene list. And let me say that this is tied for first place with Dusty Springfield's version of "Ne Me Quitte Pas/If You Go Away." Yes, it's that good. But a bit less dramatic.

Oh, and if it's still there, you can download it at Diddy Wah.

More psych-soul! This might be my favorite overall album of psych-soul... It's solid all the way through. I'm fairly certain they're related to Black Merda in some way, but I forget how.

(Annecdote: After doing a self-taught crash-course in all things funk, I attended the WFMU Record Fair, totally forgetting that awesome obscure funk is sort of 'rare' and 'highly sought after.' Whoops. At least I got some awesome 1950's country LPs for cheap.)

This reissue is probably what first got me into 'psychedelic soul.' Some of the slower soul bits aren't quite my thing, but holy shit... the funk/rock bits are amazing! If you and I ever find ourselves in a situation where you're trying to get me to sing along with something (for I've probably staunchly stated that I never sing along with songs), "Cynthy-Ruth" is the song you can break me with. Every time. Twice in a row. Three times in a row. It doesn't matter. It's too awesome.

Lately, when DJing, I discovered the amazing power of funk. Now, I've got some amazing disco stuff I can whip out for those times when people want to dance, but what if they don't want to dance? Well... that's where funk comes in. Funk will MAKE them dance. Its unavoidable. And when you've got something like this band - basically soul/funk with rock touches (I think the official genre is 'psychedelic soul') - it's even better. This band is a bit more 'soul' than 'psychedelic,' but that's ok because there's still plenty of funk to it.

And perhaps best of all, you can listen to and download the album over at Heino und Jerry's.

No, wait, even better: the title and album cover!

NSFW a bit...