At Home in Hespeler

A year ago, I reported a story in which “singer” will.i.am took a 286-mile trip to a climate change debate in a big-assed helicopter – the hip.hop.copter.

This week in Los Angeles, the Black Eyed Pea rolled out of LAX in a custom made Dick Tracey-ish car (hereby known as the “dick car”).

Wonder what that kind of mileage that puppy gets?

Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan Black Eyed Peas, will-i-am

Keef.

It’s hard to imagine that Rolling Stone guitarist Keith Richards lived to 65, and it would be easy to fire off a cockroach and Keith Richards joke and call it a birthday greeting. But I’ll leave that to others.

It would be easy too, and entirely consistent with the tone of this blog, to comment on Keith Richards the guitar player. Maybe note that he is very underrated, talk about his use of open tunings, his sense of timing. But that’s not what I’m going to do.

All fun aside, when your feting Keith you have to discuss the body of work from 1971 to 1974 at the least, from Sticky Fingers to It’s Only Rock and Roll. Perhaps you could extend it backwards to 1969’s Let it Bleed or 1967’s Their Satanic Majesties Request or generously extend it forward to 1978’s Some Girls.

But I will stick with 1971 to 1974, when Keith Richards was the driving creative force behind some of the greatest Rock and Roll ever produced, at any time, by anybody. It’s for Gimme Shelter, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, It’s Only Rock and Roll, Angie, Wild Horses, Brown Sugar and Can’t You Hear Me Knocking to name a few. Great Rock and Roll that bears the creative imprint of Keith Richards more than any other person.

At Home in Hespeler wishes an unqualified happy 65th birthday to Keith Richards. However you got here, enjoy the day and thanks for the music.

Birthday Wishes, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan

Saturday Fluffernutter – all the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities.

In the movie “Dodgeball,” Ben Stiller’s creepy character White Goodman is always saying something inappropriate, then following it up with, “just kidding… not really.” i.e.:

Kate Veatch: [outside Kate’s house] White? What are you doing here? How do you know where I live?
White Goodman: It’s called the Freedom of Information Act, Kate. The hippies finally got something right! Ha-ha! Just kidding. But not really.

Apparently P. Diddy, Doggy Dog has been studying up on his White Goodman:

Diddy claims that if he were in the Olympics, he would win a medal for having sex the longest.

“I think that’s an event I can do well in. And probably (I can) stay up the longest,” Diddy told New York magazine, usmagazine.com reported.

“Just so you know, that’s supposed to be funny. Even though I am serious.”

Creepy, and not very funny. No, really.

At Home in Hespeler is pleased to bring a new feature to Saturday Fluffernutter: Review in Brief. This week, it’s a movie review – The Sisterhood of the Ya-Ya Pants movie, part II:

“It’s pretty good Dad.”

Your welcome.

Four songs from U2’s upcoming album, No Line on the Horizon, were leaked onto the internet this week. Lead singer Bono was apparently listening to the tracks at his villa in the French Riviera when a passerby recorded them on his phone.

Which leads to the question: how loud was he playing the music that an audible recording could be made from outside the home? And if the owner of the music chooses to play it so loud, has he not placed the music into the public domain?

RIP Jerry Wexler (1917 – 2008).

Wexler helped run Atlantic Records during it’s early years when it was producing some of the most enduring records of the rock and roll era, including the Atlantic catalogue of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Wilson Pickett. He along with Ahmet Ertegun, signed Led Zeppelin to Atlantic Records. While working with Billboard magazine in the late 1940’s, early 50’s he coined the term Rhythm and Blues and was portrayed by actor Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler on The West Wing) in the Ray Charles biopic Ray.

Jerry Wexler died last weekend at his home in Sarasota Florida of Congestive Heart Failure at the age of 91.

Fluffernutter, Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan

Never mind the politics that Greg Quill of the Toronto Star thinks the Springsteen concert was about. Yes, he ranted about “what’s happening in America now – rendition, illegal wiretapping, the abuse of civil rights.” Yes, he commented that title song of his new CD, Magic, is “… not about magic, it’s about tricks.” But what Quill didn’t tell you is that all this politics took maybe, MAYBE, two minutes out of a two and a half hour concert. Nor do they mention a lusty round of boos that went through he crowd while Bruce was pontificating, southern preacher style, on the evils of what is occurring in his home country: whether those boos were agreement, or dissension I can’t say.

But one thing I can speak about to the Star. When we sat during the new songs, it was not “a form of worship or meditation” it was in anticipation of a song we wanted to hear. And that was the night’s problem. Far too many lulls, far too much time sitting out the bathroom break songs, not nearly enough Rosalita/Thunder Road/anything from the River &tc.

None of the above which is intended to suggest it wasn’t a good show: Springsteen on a bad night is still better than most, and it wasn’t a bad night. What Bruce Springsteen does well is give a high energy rock and roll show with the religious ferver of a southern Baptist tent revival. Rock and Roll is Springsteen religion, and he delivered his sermon as well last night as at any other time (OK, it’s not 1978, this I understand). What the above suggests that this early into the Magic tour there is still some issues with pacing in this show. Nothing the injection of Ramrod, Hungry Heart, Jungleland and Rosalita wont fix (if your asking Bruce, at the expense of Lost in the Flood, Gypsy Rider and Town Called Heartbreak.

There were also highlights a plenty, beginning with the opener, the new single Radio Nowhere, which works very well live, and ending with the closing number American Land, with the entire band, save drummer Max Weinberg at front of stage, two accordions, two acoustic guitars, violin, tin whistle and mandolin playing a lively Celtic piece that, while unfamiliar, worked very well. In between there was Reason To Believe, Candy’s Room, She’s The One, Living In The Future and a rollicking version of Darlington County that featured Soozie Tyrell and Clarence Clemons back and forthing on sax and violin on a rocking solo segment. I have never heard a violin played like that, and it was great.

It’s early yet in the tour, and I’m willing to bet that if Springsteen comes around next year, it will be an incredible show. But this one was still a very good, and nobody went home unhappy, just wishing for a little more familiarity and high tempo, a little less politics.

Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', Springsteen is still Boss, Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan

From the Black Eyed Peas Will I Am, looking like he ran his hummer into a retard tree, at Goreapalooza (sorry, but I’m paraphrasing).

We have to force our corporations to make better products for us to consume.

OK, I’ll start.

Dear corporate entity known as the Black Eyed Peas: please stop making shite music!

But really, I think Mr. Gore would say it’s your responsibility to consume less.

Going... Going... Gone Nuts For The Environment, Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan

It was 70 years ago today… Morgan Freeman was born unto the world. While it’s tempting to pass up the Driving Miss Daisy stars birthday, At Home in Hespeler honours Morgan Freeman for his role as Red in The Shawshank Redemption.

It was 60 years ago today… Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood was born. While “member, Rolling Stones,” is usually resume enough to get a birthday mention here, the truth is Ron Wood has been 2nd guitar overseeing the creative decline of the Stones. They have never been anywhere near as good with him as they were before him. That is not his fault, but true none the less.

However, The Faces where a truly great band, possibly the most underrated band of the rock era. While singer Rod Stewart has redefined “poser” innumerable times, for five years The Faces produced some incredible music; music good enough to get Ron Wood a birthday nod, independent of his later work.

It was 40 years ago today… That The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Like it or not, so many musicians have cited Sgt. Pepper’s as an album that influenced them or that they loved. So much so that a very reasonable argument could be made that it is the most influential album in rock.

More than anything, its a door between what the Beatles were ( a pop! group) and what they would become (Musicians in the sphere of rock). It is also the hallmark musical moment of the summer of love, which must also have been 40 years ago.

And finally… if it was 40 years ago today that John Lennon sang “It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Peper taught the band to play,” does that mean Ron Wood is Sgt. Pepper?

Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan

Paris Hilton has finally spoken about, thereby relieving us of the excruciating pain of not knowing what Mme. Hilton is thinking in this difficult time in our lives her life:

I told the truth, I feel that I was treated unfairly and that the sentence is both cruel and unwarranted. I don’t deserve this.”

To be clear, what she apparently told the truth about was that “her publicist had told her she was permitted to drive for work-related reasons after the first 30 days of her license suspension late last November, and she relied on that.”

The publicist has been fired.

There’s a book out there called Invest Like Warren Buffett, Live Like Jimmy Buffett. This week, Jimmy Buffet introduced Warren Buffet at the Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting Saturday.

“Since blood is thicker than water, I’m your new chairman,” the singer, who is boycotting Canadian Seafood at his restaurants to protest the seal hunt, said.

Warner Brothers, feeling peevish about their movies hitting the internet before they hit the big screen, have cancelled preview screenings in Canada (not including media screenings). While stories focus on movies such as Oceans 13 and Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix, here’s some other movies we, thankfully, won’t be getting a preview screening of:

Nancy Drew
License to Wed
No Reservations
The Invasion
The Brave One
August Rush

Sadly Thomas Kinkade’s The Christmas Cottage, is not a Warner Brother’s movie, and thus will be previewed in Canada and will hit the internet, thereby causing plague, pestilence and ruining Christmas for everybody.

Paris Hilton’s publicist has been re-hired. Apparently he explained to her that being sentenced to a penal institution means spending a month at Ron Jeremy’s estate.

News that Michael Moore was under investigation by the Treasury Department, which sounds very serious, brought great joy to my heart. Then I discovered it’s for breaking the Cuban trade embargo and suddenly it’s the Treasury Department that looks bloated and stupid.

Rapper Akon is in hot water for a “dirty dance” he performed in concert in Trinidad on April 12th. The dance was recorded and posted on YouTube. The girl, it turns out, is only 14. Some call it dirty dancing, but what I saw was dry-humping, and I wouldn’t pay to see a singer do that to a woman of any age. I would post the video, except it is quite possibly child porn.

Some days I wake up, kneel beside my bed and THANK GOD I WASN’T BORN A RAP FAN!

Bad Movies, Celebrities, Fluffernutter, Paris, Thank God I Wasn't Born a Rap Fan