Tuesday, August 23, 2011

RIP Jerry Leiber

September 1, 2001 - I was sitting in the audience of the Hey City dinner theater in Minneapolis waiting to experience a well-intended gift from my mom.  My mom is very thoughtful.  Sometimes she hits the mark and sometimes she completely misses.  So as I sat at my table in the darkness, uncomfortably dressed for a "fancy" Minnesota night on the town, surrounded by middle-aged suburban Minnesotans, I had to wonder, which will this be?  She bought us the tickets because she and my dad had gone to see this show and had REALLY enjoyed it.  That was a hint this probably being a miss.

The show was "Smokey Joe's Cafe", a traveling version of the Broadway retrospective of the music of Leiber & Stoller.  I was expecting a storyline with the music but it was more like a music review.  I felt like that was kind of a drag. 

If there were ever songs perfectly suited for a Broadway musical, it's the music of Leiber and Stoller (and perhaps the music of Pat Benetar).  The lyrics of Jerry Leiber told engrossing, sometimes mystical stories.  They painted a vivid picture of the difficulties and excitement of city life of the 1950s and early 1960s.  It was all at once gritty, dirty and yet filled with romance and anticipation.  Leiber and Stoller could make a person stomp on the dance floor all night long and then sweep them up to the stars on a symphony of soul.  More importantly however, their music often had a message.  As the civil rights movement was just beginning to simmer, Leiber & Stoller called their audience to action.   Many of their songs seemed to say, "Are you tired of this unjust system?! Disenfranchised people across the country, REVOLT!"  The songs and production of Leiber & Stoller encouraged people to overcome their often degrading struggles of everyday life.  Fight on!  REBEL!  RIOT!  It's a message that still rings true today.   In fact, I can't think of a more relevant right now than their song "Rat Race" by the Drifters.


There are many 20th century songwriting teams who are given credit for writing "the great American songbook" - George & Ira Gershwin. Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, Rogers & Hart, Cole Porter and himself and so on.  Leiber & Stoller belong on that list.  Had rock 'n' roll and r&b not been so looked down upon in the 1950s, Ella Fitzgerald would surely have recorded the Leiber & Stoller songbook.  I have no doubt in my mind about that.

Getting back to "Smokey Joe's Cafe".  My disappointment quickly changed to shear joy.  The performances were incredible! As often happens when I experience a tremendous performance, I became rather emotional.  TEARS.  These were tears of joy AND sadness- Sad because I realized this was probably the closest I would ever come to experiencing these songs performed live in their original style (both visually and musically). But thanks to my mom I got to have at least that.
The experience was so meaningful to me, I've carried around the coaster and ticket from the show in my DJ bag for 10 years.


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Sugar Town / Soul kitchen - 8/2/2002

I couldn't be happier! The first Sugar Town was beautifully well-supported by the Portland Queer community! Now we're on the brink of an equally exciting second Sugar Town on August 18th!  Thanks to DJ Pukes in Vans and everyone in the Portland community who helped to make my dream come to life!

And now we start dancing towards August!  I'm so excited to be spinning with Beyonda and Hard French's Brown Amy & Carnita!  I haven't seen the Hard French kids since the crazy time at the  Hard French Winter Ball where my brief obsession with ghosts (and Celebrity Ghost Stories) was born.  With these combined queer soul dee jay forces, August Sugar Town is bound to be a BLAST!  Maybe we'll even get to hear Casey play her coveted copy of "Blowin' Up My Mind" by the Exciters (I sure hope so!)
Carnita, Action Slacks & Brown Amy
Photo by Shot in the Dark

To tide you over, as promised, I've uploaded another vintage episode of Soul Kitchen. Let me take you back to August 2002, a unique time in which we were between 9/11 and just 8 months away from the Iraq War.  So many of us counter-culturists in Olympia, WA still believed that some how we could prevent a war if we just protest hard enough.  No luck.....Still we dreamed.  I'm proud to have been among those idealists.

And now....hear DJ Shannon "Action Slacks" dork out! BTW Apologies for the sound quality. It's an old cassette, a little muffled. You'll also get to hear me clumsily try to pronounce Spanish song titles. Good times.

Part 1 is here:
01 Soul kitchen Aug 2, 2002 by Sugar Town Action Slacks

Part 2 is here:
1-01 Soul Kitchen Aug 2, 2002 pt 2 by Sugar Town Action Slacks