Flaming Pablum

Last Night in Washington Square Park

Winter is not without its charms. 

Who's Your Loop Daddy? The Rise of Marc Rebillet

There’s a question on the inevitable “end of year” survey, every year, that asks what my “greatest music discovery” of the previous twelve months was. I was originally going to put this answer there, but upon further review, I felt it deserved its own goddamn post, so here that is.

Only a few months prior, I hasten to admit that I might have determined my “greatest music discovery” of 2020 to be the endearingly ridiculous Heilung, a collective of Scandiweigians who wear antlers on their heads and zestfully perform something they like to call “amplified history.” Should you care, I wrote more about Heilung here. While I did discover and summarily enjoy the inarguably odd outpourings of Heilung — although you really have to be in the right mood — their formerly pending citation as my “greatest music discovery of 2020” was thoroughly blown out of the water when I happened upon a guy named Marc Rebillet.

I can’t remember the exact context of the situation, but back in the middle of the summer, someone I know forwarded a video on Facebook of this peculiar gentleman performing a song …er… of a sort ... called, evidently, “I’m a Flamingo.” There’s no real way I’m going to do it justice with any sort of straight-faced description, so here it is now…

Right?

Okay, so obviously, when the initial puzzlement subsided, I immediately posted the video on my feed, proclaiming it be a mighty ear-worm that would take up residence in your head and never, ever leave. I feel I was right about that.

The problem, however, was that there was no explanation in the video that was forwarded to me — not even the name of the performer. For all I knew, it was just some violently vulgar one-off by some psychotic Hugh Hefner-wannabe in a silk bathrobe. I continued to laugh at it, until gradually forgetting about it.

Months went by, and then I was suddenly struck by the need to see it again, so I googled away, and up came the name Marc Rebillet.

As a general rule, with strenuously few exceptions, I tend to take a dim and dismissive view of millennials and an even less charitable view of so-called “YouTube stars.” Why is that, you ask? Well, simply because I’m old, judgmental and embittered (duh!) But within the course of viewing only two or three more of Marc Reblliet’s bizarre and wholly captivating videos, I became a hapless fanboy of this easily riled, self-proclaimed idiot.

The crucial thing, however, was that no matter how pruriently entertaining “I’m a Flamingo” was, it really didn’t even begin to capture Marc Rebillet's capabilities. Those particular gifts, I found, were better exemplified videos like this one….

As demonstrated, Rebillet occupies a unique space somewhere between singer/songwriter, stand-up comic, producer/arranger, performance artist and, well, circus geek. He’s a one-man dynamo of spontaneous musical improvisation, seasoned by some serious keyboard chops and armed with a resourceful and innovative battery of versatile equipment — crucially anchored by a loop station — that lets his impulses run rampant. Ice that oddball cake with a singularly surreal sense of humor, fueled by a potent combo of fearlessness, insatiable libido and self-deprecation, and you’ve got Marc Rebillet.

That may indeed sound like a lot of hyperbole, I realize, but when you examine the breadth of the work this guy has done in only the past three years or so, it’s hard not to be somewhat awestruck by his roundly unconventional path to, well, maybe not “success,” per se, but certainly renown. Style-wise, his music ricochets between quiet-storm R&B bump’n’grinds, rump-shaking funk, bombastic ersatz hip-hop, pulse-quickening EDM and dizzyingly frenetic electronic pastiche. To draw what many will consider a blasphemous analogy, Marc Rebillet kinda embodies the core ethos of Punk fucking Rock.

Wait, what?

You heard me, but I’m not talking about loud guitars, mohawks, safety pins and leather jackets, I’m talking about sensibility.

Taking the “Do-It-Yourself” principle to its extremes, Marc Rebillet uses everyday tools and platforms at his disposal to “write,” produce, arrange and perform his own music without any record-label support, without any formal commercial backing, without any fucking permission and without a fucking net. He has no publicist. He has no manger. He has no street team. He just does it, and has organically amassed a disarmingly large and faithful following doing so. And given the impish zeal he exudes while doing it, one gets the distinct impression that he would be doing it whether an audience was there or not. That’s fucking Punk.

In terms of his actual output, though, no Marc Rebillet doesn’t sound like Punk Rock at all. In fact, given the styles and genres he normally trades in and given his lovingly curated selections of recommended listening (Marc is a passionate music geek, obviously), I’d suggest that he couldn’t possibly be less interested in guitar-based rock music of any variety, which is actually kinda refreshing. If I had to draw further parallels, I’d say his music is kinda comparable to the explosion of esoteric samples evinced on Paul’s Boutique by the Beastie Boys, and informed by the sort of off-kilter, hyper-caffeinated wit exemplified in since-extinct cartoon shows like “Ren & Stimpy,” “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast” and “The Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” … although a helluva lot bawdier. It should also be noted that he owes quite a bit — which he readily cites — to similarly inclined comedian Reggie Watts, specifically with regard to his use of loops.

Here's another of my favorites....

You may notice I put the verb write in quotes up there. That is not meant as a slight. While inarguably well versed in all the key components of composition and meticulous arrangement, Marc creates his music on the fucking spot. Nothing is planned out or written down. It was for this reason that I was surprised to learn that, along with already having released music online, he’s currently putting together a debut album. While I will very eagerly snap up any music Rebillet sees fit to release, the concept of him recording a proper album is almost kinda counterintuitive, because so much of the reward is watching and hearing him build his songs out of absolutely nothing — total improvisation.

Pretty much entirely unlike anything I'd normally listen to, Marc Rebillet's stuff initially struck me as this amazing trove of hidden hilarity that I felt compelled to share with anyone who'd listen. I evangelized him to friends and colleagues. Then I learned that he'd graduated out of playing bars and, prior to the pandemic, was touring pretty extensively to large-sized crowds. Check out the below...

So, yeah, even though I'm obviously late to the table on this guy (turns out both of my twenty-something nephews were both ardent fans, already), I can now officially and very emphatically dub Mr. Rebillet my "greatest music discovery" of 2020. Other folks are discovering him, too.... check out this very metal cover (!!) of "I'm a Flamingo."

Long may he reign...

Hammered at The Hammerstein

Pining for the live-music experience, once again, someone on the IDLES’ Facebook page — otherwise know as the “AF Gang” — posted the following discussion thread. I answered in kind, but thought it was worth sharing here, given the subject matter and all that. The post in question concerns a venue here in Manhattan called the Hammerstein Ballroom. While I haven’t been in the building in several years, by this point, I did see some cool shows there, including performances by The Cranberries, Lush, Weezer, Massive Attack, The Prodigy and the first reunion tour of Bauhaus, which ended up being recorded for posterity and released as the album/video, Gotham. I was also there for the show described below.

"What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done during a gig?”

I immediately had an answer for that one….

At some point in the very late `90s, the Verve came to New York City, playing the cavernous Hammerstein Ballroom. As much as my friends and I loved the Urban Hymns record, I have to say -- they weren't much to witness live. Somewhat as a result, three members of my party -- self included -- got somewhat heroically drunk. At one point during proceedings, I departed from our spot in the middle of the crowd to adjourn to the men's room, which was a flight down. Again -- leglessly drunk, at this stage.

Upon reaching the stairwell, I noticed that running down the middle of the staircase was a lovely, magisterial railing. "I know, " I thought, "I will expedite this mission by sliding down this bannister, thereby getting to my destination quicker, enabling me to return to my spot in the crowd to watch this lifelessly dull performance by the Verve." This was not exactly a sound plan.

I climbed aboard the bannister and -- indeed -- sailed down it with a velocity I hadn't truly considered. I ended up shooting off the END of the bannister on the floor below and flying about another seven feet (mercifully not colliding with anyone in the process), until my ponderous bulk reconvened with the floor with a bracing thud. I landed on my wrist, which promptly swelled up like a grapefruit, constricted by a metal bracelet from Tibet I'd inexplicably taken to wearing. "You should probably have a doctor look at that," exclaimed a friend whilst handing me another beer. I didn't.

The Verve broke up about a year later. They fleetingly reconvened in the 2000's, to no great effect, although Urban Hymns remains a very fine album. The Hammerstein Ballroom remains temporarily closed in light of the pandemic. As for me, the swelling around my wrist healed... kinda after a bit, as did the black n' blue mark on my buttock and the man-sized wound in my pride. To this day -- 22 years later -- I can now click my wrist if I rotate my hand a certain way.

You're not supposed to be able to do that, obviously.

What was YOUR most embarrassing gig experience?

Below is a video of the Verve's American tour, including some lovely footage of NYC....

Sour Jazz in the Toilets

Much has been made, over the years, about the status of CBGB’s lavatories. In fact, it’s rare to hear an anecdote about the place without the being invoked. I’ve devoted no less to two posts about it myself. In any case, in the wake of my last post about the virtual tour of CBGB, a friend of mine shot me the video below, which grabbed the baton and ran with it even further. Herewith Sour Jazz — featuring my comrade Cowboy Mark on bass — playing right fucking IN that fabled water closet.

In the ensuing years since, since CBGB closed, the place was commandeered, of course, by John Varvatos. I’ve had lots to say about that, although recanted it all when I read of the man’s financial trouble. Not sure what’s going on there now, although the shop is still open, last time I walked by it. I don’t believe the general public are allowed down into the toilets, these days, but if Varvatos wanted to fire up some quick cash, he might consider opening it up to tourist groups.

Virtual CB's

I have the sneaking suspicion that at some point in the last 15+ years of doing this stupid blog, I've put this link up before, but, honestly, I can't be arsed to look for it, and it's still worth evangelizing, so here it is .... possibly for the second time.

I've gone on record here a number of times to suggest that the time for lionizing the legend of CBGB may have reached the end of its tether, and that by continuing to weepily bleat about it, those of us who cling to its memory are becoming just as cloyingly insufferable as those who continue to harp on and on about friggin' Woodstock. But, that's the cynic in me talking.

In reality, I am a fucking brazen nostalgist. It cannot be argued. For better or worse, I carry multiple torches for any number of landmarks and touchstones of lost eras. It's just the way my DNA is hard-wired. I gotta own it.

In recent weeks, I've been helping a friend fine-tune a very cool book project that has many topical tendrils wrapped around this particular stretch of the Bowery (note also my rumination on soon-to-be-razed Bowery Bar, yesterday).  As such, I am more reminded of my affinities and associations for the sweatily cramped confines of CBGB than usual, not that it's ever that far from my mind. When that book project nears fruition, I'll report more. 

As a result, when I re-spotted this "virtual tour" of the interior of CBGB, it took me right back there. Once again, is the place over-rhapsodized? Maybe, ... but what it was represented -- and continues to represent -- means a lot of a lot of people. And I'm one of them. 

Take a look inside.

Goodbye to the B Bar & Grill

If I’m being honest, I must concede that when it first opened in the early `90s, I was not at all fond of Bowery Bar, the suddenly hip & chic hotspot that opened in the footprint of a former Gulf station on East 4th Street. Being more inclined towards the grittier fare of CBGB and the like just a few steps down the Bowery and not really identifying with the fabulous "Club Kid" crowd the Bowery Bar seemed to cater to, I just didn't feel that it was my scene, so to speak. 

I also harbored a grudge against the place, as I was under the impression, at the time, that it was originally the same gas station wherein they’d filmed the music video for Billy Joel’s godawful “Uptown Girl.” As it turns out, that was at a different gas station a block or so away (remember when gas stations were plentiful in Manhattan?), but whatever – I’d already made up my mind. Fuck the Bowery Bar.

A little later on, I do remember accompanying some work colleagues there, a couple of times, but still never really embracing it the way I’d done with other spots. You were much likelier to find me at Swift’s just up the street. 

In time, Bowery Bar truncated its moniker to B Bar, for some reason. Trends came and went. Fortunes rose and fell. Everyone got older. Eventually, B Bar became just another bar/restaurant, albeit one with the cache of a hip past. My reasons for avoiding the place had long since lost their resonance, and I was happy to partake of its fare on several occasions. The last time I went, I had brunch with my daughter, one bright morning in the Spring of 2019. I remember ordering an eggs benedict and quite enjoying it.

As with many other venues, 2020 dropped the hammer on BBar, and it closed up shop for good at some point this summer. My friend EV Grieve just reported that it’s now slated to be demolished to make the way for – God knows what, at this stage of the proceedings.

While I was late to the table in my appreciation of the place, I am now genuinely sorry to see it go, and dread what towering, sun-blocking monstrosity will shortly replace it.

"Merry Christmas, My Arse! I Pray God It's Our Last..."

I've spun this particular yarn here before, but I first heard the Pogues during my freshman year of college in 1985, when my long-suffering childood comrade & future best man Keith (also known as Charlie … very long & boring story) was sequestered away in Northern England for a turbulent semester abroad. Out of the blue, Keith sent me a mixtape rife with some of the music of the moment, including several atmospheric tracks by This Mortal Coil (wrongly credited to the Cocteau Twins), a clutch of dissonant songs by the Jesus & Mary Chain (wrongly credited to the band’s debut album title, Psychocandy – details were never Keith’s strong point) and various tunes by punk bands like The Stranglers and Peter & The Test Tube Babies. Practially the whole second side side of the tape, meanwhile, was occupied by early songs by The Pogues, a feral and innovative collective that messily fused traditional Celtic folk music with the adrenalized sprint and pugnacious invective of Punk Rock. Upon a single spin, I dispatched *WITH ALL HASTE* to nearby Threshold Audio on the glorious suburban planes of Newark, Ohio to fetch myself a copy of the band’s debut LP, Red Roses For Me, and have been a fan forever since.

Of course, later efforts by the Pogues found them streamlining their aesthetic for a more accessible sound. Never was that more the case than on what would become a perennial-yet-contested song from their third LP, If I Should Fall From Grace With God called “The Fairytale of New York.”

If I’m being honest, despite it being the motherfucking Pogues and despite it being topically rooted in my hometown, I was never a tremendous fan of the track. Too much treacle and sentimentality for my taste, and not enough of lead singer/songwriter Shane MacGowan’s untethered venom – although the song would go on to court divisive notoriety for its usage of a homophobic slur, which many considered brazenly offensive and others interpreted as simply an accurate employment of just the type of vulgar vernacular the song’s inglorious characters would have used. Thirty-two years after the song’s release, that debate continues.

Some have called for the song to be edited, censored and/or banned, while others have defended lyricist Shane’s utilization of poetic license. Quite unfortunately, the track has gone onto become a de facto anthem for the SantaCon set – resulting in hordes of drunken frat-bros beerily singing along and loudly accentuating the offending noun when that verse – trilled by the tragically late Kirsty MacColl – arrives. No one is well served by this.

As much as I would otherwise staunchly defend the concept of poetic license, as a hetero white male who has never experienced any genuine form of prejudice, intollerance, bigotry or hatred first-hand, I really have no place in blithely determining what is and what isn’t credibly offensive. To asssert that those objecting to the usage of the term in this song are simply “overreacting” is to diminish any strides made in the past several decades towards a more inclusive and tolerant society. Because I’m a spineless Libra, I can understand both side of this argument.

But I’ll tell you one thing for certain. Regardless of how offensive the original 1988 composition may or may not be, one thing its storied songwriters did not deserve was to hear their song irreparably befouled by the insidious likes of Jon Bon Fucking Jovi, who just released a simply indefensible cover of the song.

Hear that below and try not to spit up all over your keyboard. 

 

10 Songs More Credibly Christmassy Than Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You"...

1. "The Anal Staircase" by Coil

2. "If It Was Broken, You'd Be Screaming" by the Happy Flowers

3. "Bring Your Daughter to The Slaughter" by Iron Maiden

4. "Die When You Die" by GG Allin & the Murder Junkies

5. "John Wayne was a Nazi" by MDC

6. "Warhead" by Venom

7. "Beach Blanket Bong-Out" by JFA

8. "Mommy, Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?" by The Misfits

9. "The Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave" by the Butthole Surfers

10. "My Dad Sucks" by the Descendents

You're Essential

Your Selfish Stupidity is Killing People

Nine months into this, we’re still seeing staggering infection rates. The headlines across the spectrum are all dire, rife with “worst case scenario” warnings, despite otherwise promising news about impending vaccine distributions. Pure and simple, because so many of my fellow Americans are breathtakingly stubborn, myopic and irretrievably fucking stupid, we have surpassed a record number of deaths, and that number continues to climb. What has to happen before people wise up? How many people have to get sick? How many businesses have to shutter? How many have to die before you get it?

Here in Manhattan — for the moment, the New York City borough with the lowest infection rate, for whatever that’s worth — you’re still likely to see folks blithely walking around without masks on. And I don’t mean with their mask around their chin or in their hand, but no fucking mask at all. I cannot help thinking, though, at this point, that those aren’t accidents. It’s not like they haven’t heard the news. They’re either driven by some conspiracy-theory agenda and being openly defiant of public health recommendations, being intractably stupid or they just simply don’t care. None of those options are okay. But, by and large, they are why we where we are.

And at the risk of beating a very dead horse, they’re doing so because they perceive the simple act of wearing a face covering to be uncomfortable, inconvenient or somehow an affront of their personal freedom. They’re either weak, selfish, stupid or a reprehensible combination of all three.

I have no punchline.

Wise up. Stay vigilant. Wear a mask.