"Your biting sarcasm wounds me, Madam..."

Monday, June 19, 2006

This sounds more manic than I intended.

One night last week (I believe it was on Thursday, but i could be wrong) The Boy and I were watching The Tonight Show and Jay Leno had on George Carlin and Mother-Fucking Ann Coulter. (The two had to sit next to each other which was sort of ironic, but Carlin actually didn't say anything while she was speaking. That's classy. No one would be surprised if he stood up and bludgeoned her with a coffee cup.) It made me a little nauseous to listen to her. The woman has written another obnoxious book that says that Democrats play the victim and that women who have lost their husbands in combat or on 9/11 are assholes or something equally as un-called for and repulsive. Coulter is a very well-respected conservative beast who is quite unfortunately, very intelligent and well-spoken. It just makes my stomach churn. And also, she's not as hard to look at as some other TV pundits. Though she is starting to look a little like Skeletor as she gets older...*

Whatever. After the Coulter interview i went outside to wrangle some dogs and clean up the kitchen (because i needed to make it clean, clean after Coulter, must clean...) while The Boy stayed inside. As i came into the bedroom, he was all 'did you see the musical guest?' and i was, 'no, i had to make it clean again'.

I had missed a performance of Kt Tunstall.** She's some new singer/songwriter from Scotland who seems to be running the show circuits in New York because she's just released her first album. I have heard her name on the radio but never heard her stuff. Or if i had, i hadn't paid any attention. You know.

Boy was telling me how interesting her performance was and that she did this weird thing with the thing and it was all like, WOW. I had missed something, apparently, because the next day he went on the internets and found a video of the performance from Leno, as well as one on Letterman, Carson Daly (what a crock that show is, right?) and Regis & Whatshername. She really was very interesting to watch. On Leno's show, she came on right after the Evil Coulter and the opening shot was a close frame on her guitar, where Tunstall had taken some masking tape and written in black ink: "This Machine Kills Fascists". Awesome, i thought. More so, when i saw that the sign wasn't on her guitar in the other shows - she did it specifically for Ann.

Does Scotland know about Ann Coulter? Is she that universally Evil? More research may tell.

Tunstall's solo performance was just so interesting in the way that she basically built her song, "Black Horse and The Cherry Trees" for the show. She started out by banging a rhythm on her acoustic guitar with her fist (on the Fascist sign - haha) and recorded it so that it looped. And then she did a scratchy riff and looped it, banged a tambourine and looped it, sang a "woooh, ooh" and so on, so that she built the rhythm to play behind her while she played the tune on her guitar and sang the verses. It was really cool. I am finding it hard to explain, but it was really cool. Amazing what the technology can do, eh? All you need is a little pedal, and you can do anything.

So after watching all of those performances, we picked up the album. And you know, its not the same? I mean, it's still good, but not the same as live. It was really interesting to watch her put it all together. And then you think that she has to piece this thing together like that and what if she screws up something. She has to live with it for the rest of the song, because the recorded loops are all played back for the rest of the song. Layers, you know? I am so obviously not a musician.



If you get a chance to see her live somehow, i would really recommend it. That's all i'm trying to say...





*Funnily enough, i did a search on 'Ann Coulter, Skeletor' and got quite a few hits. I guess i'm not as original as i though. Hmmph.

**For some reason the application on her site is not working for me, but maybe you're better with technology. Here's the Amazon link for the rest of us.

9 Comments:

  • Woody Guthrie was famous for writing "This Machine Kills Fascists" and "This Guitar Kills Fascists" on his guitar. KT was following that example in telling Coulter to take a long walk off a short pier.

    wow... my word verification was "doomffj" ... sweet!

    By Blogger minijonb, at 6/19/2006 4:45 PM  

  • I love KT and was really excited when she started getting air play. I was listening before I ever saw her play, and I was surprised at how cool the whole looping thing was.

    And AC? *gag*

    By Blogger Jess, at 6/19/2006 5:40 PM  

  • minijonb - duly noted. i was corrected by The Boy, too so i fixed it on the page. Coulter deserves whatever she gets.

    Jessica - has she been around for long? i didn't know. Hmm. And, gag, indeed. :)

    By Blogger claire, at 6/19/2006 9:40 PM  

  • I do like the Black Horse and a Cherry Tree song, and I try to tell the boyfriend about the sexual inuendo, that I don't think is actually there, but I add it anyway..."big black horse" my ass. ;)

    And I love Skeletor references. Love, love, love. This love does not extend to AC who depresses me as a human being. Her arguments now are against widows who (1) didn't do anything wrong, and (2) don't have any type of real power so why bother with such a tasteless attack. It's not like they're politicians running, they're just people living their lives. Grrr...I would love to just kick AC really hard in the shins.

    By Blogger Christine, at 6/20/2006 8:06 AM  

  • anne coulter is the beast of the apocalypse. how carlin made it through that interview without infarcting is beyond me.
    peaceout!

    By Blogger FirstNations, at 6/20/2006 9:05 AM  

  • Claire - I dont know if she's been around for long, but I had her CD slightly before the songs were on the radio due to the recommendation of a friend who is much more on the musical up-and-up than I am. I believe it was a response to a, "I don't like any songs that are slow, sad, angry, or depressing," comment I made.

    Claire and first_nations - I just saw a clip of that segment with Horrid Anne and Carlin. I think he got through it without saying anything because the look on his face did all the talking...

    By Blogger Jess, at 6/20/2006 9:42 PM  

  • actually i think the popularity of that song and her to the mass of americans was helped by Americian Idol
    i tried to call and tell you this but i think you were at lunch.

    By Blogger withoutaname, at 6/21/2006 12:37 PM  

  • Hey,
    Yep, kt rocks - and no, we haven't really heard of Ann Coulter over here, but I've seen the name mentioned on a couple of US blogs that i read lately (never favourable mentions i might add!). We're not so big on the Conservatives/Republicans/eedjits over here - try to avoid whenever possible.
    Anna (in Scotland)

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 6/22/2006 4:12 AM  

  • christine - a good swift kick would make us both feel better.

    first nations - carlin was a true gentleman

    jess - no slow, sad, angry or depressing? wow - you've really limited yourself there. sounds like you'll be listening to a lot of britney... well she's maybe part of 'depressing'.

    s - she was on AI? I must have missed it. Will tell the boy to try and find the clip...

    Anna - hi! thanks for coming by to answer my call to all of Scotland. I guess kt heard about AC while she was touring the US, then.
    Not enough of us are smart enough to ignore the conservative /republican /eedjits here. Too bad really.

    By Blogger claire, at 6/22/2006 9:31 AM  

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