Art is the music we make from the bewildered cry of being alive. ~Maria Popova
02 Jan 2026 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: the carpenters
31 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in Recommended Albums Tags: del close & john brent, how to speak hip
Del Close & John Brent: How to Speak Hip (1959)
How to Speak Hip, a 1959 comedy album by Del Close and John Brent, was a satire of foreign language-learning records, with the “foreign language” being the parlance of “hip”.
Its lesson was intended, the introduction explains, “for English-speaking people who want to talk to, and be understood by, jazz musicians, hipsters, beatniks, juvenile delinquents and the criminal fringe”.
And if the record’s primary mission was comedy, it did a fair job of elucidating hip terms and culture.
Comedian Del Close was an early member of the St. Louis comedy troupe that, upon moving to Chicago, changed its name to Second City. Close was cited as a mentor and inspiration by the likes of John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray and John Candy.
Close plays the “straight”–read “square”–role of host/interviewer while actor John Brent–known for roles in films such as Catch-22 and American Graffiti–plays hipster Geets Romo, who chafes at the rigid, formal structure of Close’s lesson.
Geets’ reluctant participation and general disdain for the lesson (“let’s send out for some pizza”) makes for a hilarious listen, even while the objective of teaching the language of hip is actually achieved rather effectively despite.
The cult status of How to Speak Hip was enhanced by Beach Boy Brian Wilson, who was fond of quoting Geet’s “…and then we’ll get, you know, world peace”, from the record’s introduction.
Wilson can be heard referencing it in the Pet Sounds recording sessions:
In fact, the working title of the Pet Sounds track “Let’s Go Away For Awhile” was actually “Let’s Go Away For Awhile (And Then We’ll Have World Peace)”.
How to Speak Hip has been sampled and excerpted by DJ’s, rappers, jazz and electronic music artists over multiple decades.
It’s considered pretty hip.
Listen to: “Introduction”
Listen to: “Basic Hip”
Listen to: “Vocabulary Building”
Listen to: “The Loose Wig”
Listen to: “The Hang Up”
Listen to: “Put On, Put Down, Come On, Come Down, Bring Down”
Listen to: “Cool”
Listen to: “Uncool”
Listen to: “Summary”
29 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in Video of the Week Tags: ghost riders in the sky, glen campbell, roy clark
29 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in General Posts Tags: grace slick, jefferson airplane, jomi mitchell, woodstock
(via SACRAMENTO’S K-ZAP)
Grace Slick explains why Joni Mitchell got Woodstock all wrong:
Jefferson Airplane were billed as the Saturday night headliners, but the festival was famously marred by major delayed due to a huge rainstorm in the middle of the day.
Santana was due to perform at 1pm on Saturday, but was too busy tripping on mescaline and wasn’t mentally there yet. So instead, they brought in someone else, shuffled him to 2pm and thus began a whole day of push-backs and hold-ups, eventually leading to bands playing throughout the night and Slick only hitting the stage as the sun was rising.
The only thing bands could do was surrender, and so that meant one thing: drugs. “Our road manager had a box with about 16 little segments in it, and he had different drugs in each of the little segments. And we took what we thought was cocaine — snorting it, not shooting it — snorting it backstage just before we went on,” Slick recalled as the band thought they were doing their typical routine.
They were mistaken, though, as they quickly realised that the white substance was the wrong one. “We took it out of the wrong box, and we took LSD. So, about 15 minutes into the set, we looked at each other and went, ‘Oh boy. Oops.’”
With way more people than planned for, the facilities weren’t up for the job either, meaning that there was just mass filth everywhere from leaking toilets and overflowing bins. A lack of clean water was the cherry on top, too.
“We are stardust, we are golden,” Mitchell sings on her theme tune for the event, claiming “Everywhere was a song and a celebration.” However, Mitchell wasn’t there.
“Joni Mitchell got all, you know, sugary about it and said we got to get ourselves back to the garden, and we’re stardust, and we’re golden and all that kind of stuff, which is a little bit over the top,” she said in 2019 when her own real memories were of dirt and drugs.
To her, Woodstock was as sleazy of a scene as any other chaotic festival, adding of Mitchell, “I’m surprised that her take on it was so sweet.”
Catch the stream at k-zap.org, on the k-zap apps or at 93.3 FM in the metro Sacramento area.
28 Dec 2025 Leave a comment
in Songs You May Have Missed Tags: riu chiu, the monkees
The Monkees: “Riu Chiu” (1967)
The Monkees perform (a portion of) a Spanish Renaissance-era Advent carol from a Christmas episode of their TV series.
The “riu chiu” nonsense syllables were meant to mimic the call of the nightingale or kingfisher. The lyrics translate thusly:
Ríu, ríu, chíu, la guarda ribera,
Dios guardó el lobo de nuestra cordera
[With a cry of] Ríu, ríu, chíu, the kingfisher, God kept the wolf from our Lamb
El lobo rabioso la quiso morder
Mas Dios Poderoso la supo defender
Quísola hacer que no pudiese pecar
Ni aun original esta virgen no tuviera
The raging wolf sought to bite her, but God Almighty knew (how) to defend her; He chose to make her so that she could not sin; no original sin was found in that virgin
Éste que es nacido es el Gran Monarca
Cristo Patriarca de carne vestido
Ha nos redimido con se hacer chiquito
Aunque era infinito finito se hiciera.
This one that is born is the Great King, Christ the Patriarch clothed in flesh. He redeemed us when He made himself small, though He was Infinite He would make himself finite
“Jingle Bells” it is not.
Every Moment Has A Song 