Well, dear readers, when I was in New York filming Sami, we had our little get-together at Joe Allen, where dear reader elmore gave me a lovely gift of a box set of Harpers Bizarre’s four Warner Bros. albums. I had a Japanese CD of their first album and then a compendium album with around twelve tracks from subsequent albums. I always meant to get the imports on the last three albums. So, now that I figured out how to do the Blue Tooth thing, I finally have been listening to them. I find these albums completely unique for their time – adventurous, weird, interesting material, and incredible vocal overlays and harmonies, plus a lot of orchestral backing. But not only that – really fantastic orchestrations, too. I know I’ve talked about them before when I was listening to their stuff, but these new masters are fantastic. It was a time in the music business like no other, when there was a real place for unique music like this and Warner Bros. was kind of the hub of it, with newbies Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, and others, with incredible producers like Lenny Waronker. Their first recording was a big hit – Feelin’ Groovy. But my favorite track of theirs is Anything Goes, a brilliant arrangement in incredible sound. Their Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat is equally clever, same with Chattanooga Choo Choo. They all feel like concept albums. The first two are brilliant, the third less so, with only a handful of great tracks, but then they’re back with a vengeance on their fourth and final album. Theirs was a very brief time in the sun, basically four albums in about three years and then they broke up, because three of the four didn’t want Waronker as a producer anymore and Ted Templeman, the leader, wanted Waronker to keep producing. They did have a short comeback of one album in 1976, but without Templeman. Templeman had gone on to become a producer, working with Van Morrison, Bette Midler, and Carly Simon. They had two songs prominently featured in movies – the title song of I Love You, Alice B. Toklas and William Friedkin used Anything Goes for the main titles of The Boys in the Band film – a perfect choice. The 1976 album, called As Time Goes By, is one I haven’t heard so I’m hoping it’s on the Tube of You.
I did manage to watch two items, both of which I’d begun the night before, and both on Broadway HD. First, I finished Ruthless! I enjoyed it, but the girl playing Tina is simply too old – fourteen – to be playing an eight-year-old. It’s funnier younger. The gal playing the Joan Ryan role is good but not as perfect as Joan was. The Sylvia St. Croix is also fine but not as fine as Loren Freeman. Same goes for the supporting cast, especially Tracie Bennett as Lita – Rita McKenzie owned the role and will always own it. The director has a lot of cutesy blocking going on, almost if he doesn’t trust the inherent campiness of the material – that’s all on the page and in the songs. Joel Paley, who wrote the book and lyrics, directed much cleaner, with a better sense of pace, and everything landed better. They add a reed and extra percussion for London and it just muddies things – the two piano and percussion sound is clean and wonderful. So, a bit of a mixed bag as a production, but still fun because the writing is strong. The second thing I finished was Peter Pan Goes Wrong – we did the going wrong thing first, way back in 1978 – I don’t know of any show that had done that joke before Stages. It was the act ender – first we saw the key scene of a faux melodrama done perfectly. Then on opening night, everything that can go wrong does. The laughs were long and loud and went on and on with each new gag. But what really made it work was having seen it done right first. Sets fall, guns don’t fire and then do when they shouldn’t – really fun. Then came Michael Frayn’s Noises Off. And then these Goes Wrong shows, which, for me, don’t work nearly as well because we HAVEN’T seen it done right first. Yes, there are very funny bits (in Peter Pan, it’s an amateur theater group doing the show – something else we did before anyone else, in 1982 with Together Again – that show also was the first to make fun of other musicals, long before Forbidden Broadway and it, of course, has the first use of I Hate Musicals in a song – Ruthless came much later. Anyway, it’s stretched out too long and this one’s really designed for the camera. David Suchet is the narrator and very funny he is, too, including a funny bit where he suddenly dons a Poirot mustache.
Then I began the newest London production of 42nd Street – it’s directed by Mark Bramble, the book writer, and has some new choreography occasionally, by Randy Skinner. Of course, it’s based on Gower Champion’s original staging, but Bramble has put back stuff that Champion had taken out – and it should have stayed out. He’s not Champion as a director and so the acting is just not very good, and when it sticks to Gower’s choreography it’s fine, but it certainly doesn’t have Gower’s original dancers and it shows. I watched about thirty minutes and found it fairly excruciating. And horror of horrors, who directed for the camera? The awful Ross MacGibbon, who has ruined way too many operas and ballet with his ineptitude, which is on full display instantly when the curtain finally rises on the dancers (we don’t see it rise, thereby missing the entire point of the staging), and we immediately get shots of assorted feet, limbs, everything under the sun except a shot that goes on long enough so that we can see what they’re actually doing. He’s been at this game a long time – I figured he had to be in his late seventies, but no, he’s younger than I am by eleven years, so he must have started VERY young. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll make it to the end and I have to think Gower would not have been happy with either Mr. Bramble or Mr. Skinner.
Yesterday was also weird. I did get about nine hours of sleep but not consecutive – was up for an hour around six. So, I didn’t get up until one, I answered e-mails, then went to the mail place and returned the sheets – I’ve already received the credit for them – and went next door to Jack in the Box to have some of their weird tacos, which I’ve always enjoyed, perverse as they may be. Dear reader George had had them the night before and they sounded good, and I hadn’t had them in months. They weren’t the best I’ve had, but they were weird and good. I had some telephonic calls, did a few things on the computer, then began my viewing adventure. At about nine-thirty, I ordered in an Eyetalian sandwich from Fat Sal’s – not too large and very good it was.
Today, I’ll be up by eleven or so, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I still have to make a show order but can’t do it until Sharon McNight and I figure out her two songs – she’ll do stuff she’s done but I have to place them in the order and can’t just guess at it. Then I’m going to Marshall Harvey’s to help with the first of the songs he has to edit. I think it’s mostly about the vocal and I think once we decide our path on that, he’ll be able to do all the other songs easily – that’s IF my theory about it works, which I think and hope it will. Then I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, I’ll eat, and then I can watch, listen, and relax.
I have no idea what’s up for the weekend, but next week is figuring out our next two releases – I’m pretty sure I know what they are – and get all the Kritzerland show stuff done so I don’t have to worry about it.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by eleven or so, do whatever needs doing, figure out what Sharon McNight is doing so I can make a show order, go to Marshall Harvey’s abode, hopefully pick up packages, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s Friday – what is currently in your CD player and your DVD/Blu and Ray player? I’ll start – CD, I have a little stack of things I haven’t played yet. DVD, perhaps that Ron Howard thing, Thirteen Lives. Your turn. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have listened to the four Harpers Bizarre albums again.