She decided to be a Playa

Sometimes people wonder where the text for a song like Playa from my 'Anutha Kinda Brotha' album comes from. Sometimes I wonder if I’m so twisted that I imagine lyrics that way.

Then something happens that helps me realize that life is weirder than any of my songs portray.

I was sittin' on the top of  a double decker near Liverpool Street station the other day and overheard this conversation behind me. It was a girl on the bus who was speaking about how she would meet older men and game on them in petty ways:

 "I’ve been doing it since I was 16. My parents know how I get my money. I don’t fuck some big old man. They just come to me, this one guy, he took me and my friends out to eat and we built up a bill. The bill was £37 and he paid for it. I was talkin' on the phone and this Indian man was staring at me and I said what you staring at, then I said I’ll take your phone, and he said that wouldn’t be very nice. I said I’ll take your phone. Then I said give me your phone number. And I kept calling him. I made him go down to the chicken and chip shop and bring me something, I met him in the street. I didn’t let him go to my house. Sometime I take my brother, my parents know how I get my money. They asked me to stop, but I keep on doing it. My brother has a alias. I have an alias to, my alias is Samantha."

Mona Lisas & Mad Hatters

I'm gonna go off on a tangent now. I know I'm supposed to be the Alternative Soul Man, but I got to do a thang for Elton now. Can't help myself. Perhaps he is not the most obvious artist in need of props now, but Elton John is really something, and I ain't gonna wait till he dies to speak out and say it.
 
I have been helping the band Lucky Soul with ideas for their video, and their guitarist Ivor pointed out Robert Downey's video version on Elton's I Want Love. I vaguely remember the song being released 5 or 10 years ago, and thinking this is a kind of back to basics for Elton. Instead of all the digital beats and synth pads, he was hitting the piano and drums a la Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.
 
But I left it at that. Then to be reminded of this song via the Robert Downey video blew my mind. I sat there intending to study the video and put up with the accompaning track, cause though I love the early Elton/Bernie Taupin stuff, I have not taken Elton seriously for twenty years. But when the video finished, I said to myself "thats a pretty good song". Then I went about some other web searches, but ten minutes later, I just couldn't get that song out of my mind - so I played the video again and realised I really like that song, that's a fucking great song!
 
Tonight I couldn't sleep , so I stumbled on it again. And then I played his song Friends, and I got to say to ya'll "I'm feeling Elton"!
 
What exactly is Elton doin in his music. He seems to have created a lasting character called Elton John. This character 'Elton John' appears to be some sort of mythical masculine sailor of the post modern woodland. Like some type of unemployed lumber jack who now works on an oil rig off the cost of North Korea 3 months a year. In other words, his voice, his piano playin and his song writing seem to be the vision of the last hero of the pacific imagination.

Here sings a man about the toils of vulnerability in strength. A man who is truly capable of love, but can never sustain the connection into a permanent relationship. I mean Elton never really gets the girl in the songs he inhabits. He never says we are now inseparable in our union.
 
No in the Elton John songs where we see his myth develop, he is quite alone. The piano man playing the last bar in Milwaukee, giving the regulars one more tune to soak their forfeits in.

Really who can play piano like Elton? It is obvious that he has studied and borrowed modern gospel piano stylings and put them on a wild moor pony from Cornwall. His voice as well evokes an Americana fragrance that is not available in an essential oil burner.
 
Yellow Brick Road is the master piece LP. But Captain Fantastic is worth mentioning with Someone Saved My Life taking on zenith proportions.
 
I leave you with this - Elton says "if your friends are there then everything's alright". There says everything you need to know.

Love,

Art

Welcome and Last nite Ike saved my life

Welcome to my Blog, and welcome to our springtime here in London! It is March 20th and though it was damp it was not cold. The winter is over and where are you? Last night I was at Shunt Lounge jamming on acoustic piano with Anna Frisch. Shunt Lounge for those of you who have never been there is literally underground in a dis-used part of London Bridge Tube Station. It is a very big dis-used part of London Bridge. DJ Anna was droping what she loves the best - John Zorn and Marc Ribot tracks. I was over-dubbing live on to them. It was a Funky Arts affair, with everyone screaming "turn it up". But that is the point of Shunt Lounge. It ain't supposed to be a traditional rave club, it is offering something diffrent than just loud drum and bass.

It is so chilled out there since they re-opened. Before, if you were doin performance art in there, you had to integrate the loud boom boom boom of the DJs into your audio soundtrack. Now the DJs dont start to get live before midnight.

Then we danced. Oh yea, I got down with Jean Genie with some Nutbush City Limits. One of the hardest dance floor joints to ever hit! Ike (and Tina) Turner, was a bad man in more ways than one. A girl I was dancing with earlier asked me, 'who this was'. It was a cover of The Beatles' Come Together, and it was pretty freaky. Didn't sound exactly like no one you could put your finger on. Like The Fall backing Dinah Washington on a cell phone cussing her 6th husband. I guessed Ike and Tina, but the sista didn't believe me. So I asked DJ Anna and sure enuff it was! Bad Ass...........