Citizen Mom

Now Ain't That Some Shit?

via www.youtube.com

Official video for what is already officially the unofficial song of the year, Cee-Lo Green's "F**k You." It's truly cathartic.

NSFW, but you knew that.

Hirsute Hipster Hoedown Hey Whynot!

Mumford and Sons, "Little Lion Man"

When I'm Out On The Springstreets Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh

via youngjerks.com

A big hat tip to my Twitter pals at the Rowan U. Bio Geospatial Research Lab (aka @RowanGeoLab) for today's Jersey Moment.

Take a gander at Springstreets, "A map of New Jersey based solely on Bruce Springsteen lyrics."

Like woah, Boss.

Careful, though, it comes with a warning: 

SPRINGSTREETS IS NOT TO SCALE AND SHOULD NOT BE USED ON A DRIVE, LAST CHANCE POWER OR OTHERWISE. THE ONLY THING YOU CAN REALLY USE THIS MAP TO FIND IS YOURSELF.

Obviously, I must have this like right this very minute. I shall frame it and hang it right next to my oversized "Family Tree of Rock" print.

Peaches, and peaches

Two wildly unrelated things about the velveteen fruit today:

First, the New Jersey peaches are in full flush now, and with more than 100 varieties grown here, there's plenty to keep you cooking, canning and cobblering for weeks. This tree was picked this afternoon, a few hours after I snapped this.

 

This Sunday, you can feast on some peaches in their own neighborhood, at blueplate's Dinner in the Orchard event at Holtzhauser's farm here in Mullica Hill. Chef Jim's peach-centric menu will feature Flaming Fury and white donut varieties. Can I get a Yum? Yes, yes I can.

Regarding a peach of a very different kind: After much consideration, I've decided that the evolutionary point at which Lady Gaga went from Stefani Germanotta, dark-haired piano songstress, to platinum blond art freak had to come sometime during Peaches' 2006 tour.

Here's my report on Peaches' Nov. 25, 2006 show, from Phawker:

It warmed the cockles of me heart to see the way Peaches worked the Troc crowd into a sweaty horndog mess. It’s good for the kids to try new things.

She’s got a guitar stance like Gene Simmons, wide-legged and cocky, setting forth on the “Teaches of Peaches,” scaling the speakers and lap-dancing a few stoners up in the balcony. That was cool, but nothing I haven’t seen before. Where Peaches made me her bitch was when they brought out the bike — one of those ’70s chumpies with the banana seat and the big U-shaped handlebars. So hot.

Sounds a lot like a Lady Gaga thing, no? Well, it looked a lot like one, too, right down to the spewing blood. I'm not hating, I just think it's important to remember that before GaGa was bluffin' with her muffin, we were impeaching someone's bush. Like the song says, the girls wanna be her. (Video probably NSFW)

Peaches, "Boys Wanna Be Her"

Love Me With A Feeling: The Queen Bee, Tonya Browne, Is Still A Buzz

Photo by Gary Korman

The in-between season, while the kid and husband are home on winter break, is always a slow time for me, but I have a piece in this month's Penn Stater Magazine about how live music -- Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet Band in particular -- got me through a long winter before graduation.

A .pdf of the story

The idea came from finding a bunch of Queen Bee clips on YouTube, at very, very long last. Here's Tonya Browne singing, and an early incarnation of the band playing, "Every Night About This Time" in 1990. I love how Mark Ross just kind of sways back and forth, the metronome keeping everyone in time. 

By the time I came around about a few years later, her voice had both strengthened and refined (Their MySpace Player has a few good clips from that time, especially "Let Me Tell You What Love Is.") and the band had changed up a little bit to include Rene Witzke and Doug Bernstein, who later split for Nashville. Through the wonders of Facebook I've got back in touch with Rene and am happy to find him -- and his beautiful, multi-talented wife, singer Molly Countermine, of Pure Cane Sugar, Maxwell Strait etc. -- living, playing and raising a family in the State College area. Mark Ross's son is now old enough that he played with the band on a recent reunion gig (Ryan Jones blogged about it for the Penn Stater here), and "Sleepy" Jack Wilkinson is still banging away, God love him.

Longtime Citizen Mom readers know about Tonya Browne. From '06:

. . . am fondly remembering sneaking up to an apartment above the Shire in Cape May with Tonya and a few others, and getting completely hammered during the drum solo in "Too Tall To Mambo."

During the next song, three hoochies and a large bouncer-looking dude from the (now bulldozed) Wildwood strip club C.R. Fannie's come in. The girls start busting moves on the dance floor -- not stripping, though they were wearing assless jeans and the CR Fannie's logo was painted on their buttcheeks. Such helpful girls, bless their hearts.

After they left, we were all so loaded we just looked at each other like "did that just happen?"

The Blue Hornet Band, with Tonya out front, accomplished a lot: Not just regular regional gigs, several CDs and a large and loyal group of fans, but European dates and opening for B.B. King -- who was said to have been drawn out of his dressing room by the sound of Tonya's voice. Every band needs its legends, and that one is beloved.

My own personal legend is about the night we finally graduated, and both my parents and Pop Cesspool's folks sat around a table at Cafe 210West, toasting themselves on their accomplishment and rocking out to the Queen Bee. There couldn't have been more happy people in State College that night.

I'm grateful to Tina Hay and the Penn Stater for publishing the piece -- I was hoping it might be a catalyst for Queen Bee fans to find each other, and the music, again. Cue social media! 

I have plenty for which to thank Tonya, Mark, Rene and Jack -- and not just New Year's Eve '93 and '94 at the North Star Bar, though that alone would be plenty -- but the biggest may be that those shows ignited my love of live music and appreciation for the people who make it. Keep rocking.

For The Record: The version of "My Baby Loves The Way," on the MySpace Player, is my all-time favorite.

DAILY COLLEGIAN: Singing the blues, April 4, 1994

Can A "Broad Street Stomp" Version Of "The Bristol Stomp" Be Far Behind?

Today's entry in the white-hot musical subgenre one likes to call Phillies 2009 World Series Rally Tunes is "Parading Down Broad Street," a Phils-centric homage to the 1967 hit "Boogaloo Down Broadway" by The Fantastic Johnny C. The new version is by a West Chester-based band Lost In Paris, and I can dig it. Funky Broad Street!

Hat tip to Cheryl!

PS: I wasn't kidding about the "Broad Street Stomp." Somebody get The Dovells on the phone.

Remember "Don't Stand So Close To Me '86"?

No? Perhaps you wisely blocked it out. Seems Bono has, too.

I love U2 and all but I'm pretty sure that when you start talking seriously about wanting to go back and re-work the albums that made you the world's biggest rock band, it means you're officially out of new ideas. From Reuters, via Washington Post:

SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts - Irish band U2 gave a prelude to its upcoming world tour with a brief private show on Wednesday for just 950 fans who got a chance to make news by asking the band some tough questions.

Among the revelations from the banter with the crowd: U2 is considering reworking and re-releasing some early work including its debut album "Boy" released in 1980 that included U2's first big hit "I Will Follow."

"I would love to sing that album again and finish that," said lead singer Bono. He said they were rushed from the studio producing "Boy" because they "couldn't afford another hour."

"The early records, there's some beautiful songs that feel a little bit unfinished to us," he said.

Pressed on what he'd like to change, the Irish rocker singled out his "phony English accent" on "Boy."

Tell Nickelodeon and Viacom: Chris Brown Is Not Welcome At Kids' Choice Awards

I'm on deadline today so am going to keep this one short and sweet: Despite being charged with two serious felonies in connection with the beating of his girlfriend, singer Rihanna, Chris Brown remains nominated for two Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. And he's using his MySpace page to beg for votes.

In response to questions by TMZ, which has been ahead of this story at every turn, the network is falling back on its kids-rule ethos:

A Nick exec tells TMZ Brown "was nominated by kids several months ago, and the kids who vote  will ultimately decide who wins in the category."

This may come as a shock to Nickelodeon and Viacom, but while the kids may pick the winners, the parents still pick what shows the kids watch, at least in this house. And I can say right now that if Chris Brown remains nominated for an award, I will not let my son watch the show and will encourage other parents to boycott the network.
It's pretty sad when TMZ is setting the moral standard on an issue, but there you go. Ironically, Brown is nominated for the song "Kiss, Kiss" with T-Pain, who went to jail in '07 -- for driving with a suspended license.
Some will rightly point out that when Jamie Lynn Spears, then the star of a top-rated Nickelodeon show, became pregnant a few years back, the network didn't ostracize her. True, though it's apples-to-oranges unless you hold getting knocked up in the same regard as beating your girlfriend up.
Which I do not.
I also do not ever recall seeing video of Jamie Lynn Spears leaving a nightclub at 3 a.m., the way we watched the underage Brown do in Miami last week. We already know about the bad judgment Brown showed by putting his hands on a woman, and the potentially worse judgment Rihanna has shown by taking him back. But those are their bad choices to make.

Nick has a chance here to make a better, more responsible choice. And if it can't see fit to, parents will.

UPDATE: As of Wednesday morning, this online petition has nearly 9,000 signatures and other media are picking up the story.

FACEBOOK: Page with Nickelodeon/Viacom info for parents

COOL ISH: Five Step

Mashup of Radiohead's "15 Step" with the Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Take Five." Because the 5/4 time ain't for amateurs, son.
H/t @ckrewson

I Really Do Believe, I Really Do Believe There Is A Heaven Somewhere

In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the life of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the pioneering gospel-blues guitarist and singer who lived on Master Street and worshiped at Bright Hope Baptist. She died in 1973, but while Sister Rosetta had a stamp she never had a headstone on her grave in Norwood Cemetery.

She does now, after a fund-raising effort helped in part by a concert at the Keswick Theater by gospel legends including the Dixie Hummingbirds and Odetta.

The memorial reads, in part:

SHE WOULD SING UNTIL YOU CRIED, AND THEN

SHE WOULD SING UNTIL YOU DANCED FOR JOY

SHE HELPED TO KEEP THE CHURCH ALIVE

AND THE SAINTS REJOICING

About Sister Rosetta: 

In 1957, Rosetta Tharpe and her husband, Russell Morrison, moved to Philadelphia, joining the lively local gospel scene. She was a first-generation resident in the historic Yorktown  neighborhood, and a member of Bright Hope Baptist Church.
From Philadelphia, she did some of her finest recordings, releasing five LP’s and gaining a Grammy nomination with her 1968 album, Precious Memories. Her tours of Europe in the late 1950’s helped to spark the British blues revival and onset of 1960’s popular music. In 2008, The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission approved the placement of a Historical Marker at the Philadelphia home of Sister Rosetta (1102 Master Street).
A funding drive is currently in the works to finance this Marker. In addition, plans for a memorial service to commemorate the monument at Northwood Cemetery are being set for Spring, 2009. [Bob Merz]

PREVIOUSLY: Rendell calls Jan. 11, 2008 Sister Rosetta Tharpe Day