This time Alice, Kristen, and Byron, with June and Jean Millington, discuss the YouTube video of Fanny playing live on French TV, and Nickey’s “Conversation with a Cop” from the first album. Listen to see who wins a copy of the “Fanny: Live in 1972” CD.
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NOTE: These podcasts will be produced once every two weeks at present. A lot of work goes into these and we’re looking for feedback from the fans to drive the direction of the podcast.
Thank you folks for the podcast! You’re illuminating the dark days of pandemic and doing the Groove’s work! Thank you for your service. Strength and peace to you all!
Okay, enough with the sincerity. On to the ridiculousness!
Once again, I will be relaying my comments in a near stream of consciousness manner particular to me that I like to call a stream of unconsciousness; a misnomer perhaps, but at my age you can never be sure about the connection with consciousness. It’s always fading in and out. And it’s certainly no stream anymore. womp womp ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How’s the weather? There’s only one person who can answer that question properly, the late, great Robin Williams: https://youtu.be/pJJBbK2XNbE
You raise an interesting point about subversive lyrics; at what point in popularity do they lose their subversive effect? It’s questions like this that keep me up nights, you know?
A tip of the hat and a trick of the tongue to Dr. K. for her stellar alliterative work with ProtoPunk Performance! A check for $0.05 is on its way from the Alliteration Society of America. Keep up the good work!
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m not a drummer, but I’ve played the role of “percussionist” for several years in a “locally tolerated” jam band. I’d tell you the name but it apparently now means something disgusting on Urban Dictionary. So I’ll spare you researching it yourself. It’s the least I can do.
My point being, we played a few “shitty” gigs and can extrapolate the hassle! I guess the worst was a hippie music “festival” in Upstate New York. No, not that one! This one was east of Rochester, almost on the shore of Lake Ontario at the home of one of the engineers in a renewable energy company comprising men and women who all knew each other through James Madison University. Every year the company threw a Memorial Day weekend bash on this guy’s huge tract of farmland. They invited all their musician friends to come play and our drummer was one of them!
It was a 12 hour drive from Virginia and our 5 person band drove 4 different vehicles leaving at 4 different times on Friday due to work. Wait, that’s not true because there were only 4 persons and 3 vehicles because our bass player was on bail and couldn’t leave the state.
But the gig was cool. The cat who sat in on bass had some connection to the Brian Setzer Orchestra. He didn’t need a minute to nail our entire set list and rocked the hell out of it on an electric upright! A good time, aside from our drummer getting a monster nosebleed two songs in from partying non-stop 96 hours with his college buddies. Nothing a Kleenex jammed up a nostril couldn’t fix (and thanks to that one gal in the crowd who helpfully tossed a handful of tampons at him)! Oh, and there was the dude, or someone, dropping a bag of weed on my head, with a glass pipe in it, from some tree fort up in the tree directly behind the open stage. I mean, “Hey! Thanks for the weed, brah! But I’m kinda busy playing here at the moment and besides there’s a knot on my head and the bag’s all full of glass shards!”
Our first collection of songs that might be considered an “album” was called “Assassin of Youth,” you know, after that Reefer Madness clone? We practiced in a ten-foot by thirty-foot storage unit where we inherited a poster of Miles Davis when we moved in and installed a one-foot tall statue of the Hindu God Ganesh our guitarist found in a lake one morning at his day job on the drum riser. The band broke up (yes, it has to do with the bass player on bail but is a much longer story for another time and definitely not the story you may be thinking)! The poster is long gone but when no one else wanted him, I took Ganesh. He’s still on my book shelf today.
Okay, moving on.
I agree, Conversation with a Cop resonates in Trump world, too. It speaks to something primal in our reaction to being repressed. Fight the Power! Fuck the man! Up against the barricades! Let slip the dogs and all that.
Jim
Would like to correct. There are 2 people who can answer that question properly.
https://youtu.be/D1uaw3WIOlc?t=00m22s
Oh, Jim!
Your “stream of unconsciousness” made my Sunday! BUMMER about the glass pipe, but desperate fools probably smoked the weed anyway. It sounds like you’ve had quite an interesting (to put it mildly) life. Please continue sharing your sterling thoughts with us lowlifes!
Alice
Thanks, Alice! Glad I can pay back a little and make your Sunday!
I believe I will continue sharing my thoughts here since Twitter won’t let me play in their sandbox anymore (couldn’t stop telling Ted Cruz to eat multiple bags of dicks)!
Peace!
Hi Jim! Again, you have managed to write the best feedback to our podcasts! I can’t think of a clever comeback for my alliteration talents, but I am eager to receive my $0.05 check! Even though Twitter won’t let you play in their sandbox, we’re also on Facebook. However, here is great too – we just appreciate you, your commentary, and your insights. Peace!
Thanks, Dr. K.!
BTW – “clever comeback” is a bit alliterative!
🙂
Many thanks, interesting stuff.
Jean in one take, like LIVE! Congratulations to the winner of the Live CD, I am just glad to know the answers I sent in were all correct. Just like in life, you can get all the answers correct and still not win! Maybe there will be another chance? If so, looking forward to it. If not, it’s all good!
Colleen,
Did you miss the most recent bassline quiz? I didn’t see answers from you……
Oh well, yes, there will be more!
Alice
I’ve recounted my own conversation with a (British) cop on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAGQZiADkD4 . The circumstances and time period were similar, but the whole affair was relaxed and non-threatening, a conversation between equals.
I feel so sad when I hear of Nickey’s experience, the palpable indignant hurt in her voice and the wistful, sympathetic feel of the arrangement.
No doubt there are decent, tactful officers in the States, and certainly some arrogant little Hitlers in the UK, but the latter are very much in the minority.
Particularly poignant is Nickey’s ability to see the matter from the officer’s point of view, the general atmosphere of dread, which if anything is getting worse, and being exploited by amoral politicians. May America’s nightmare journey end soon – we can but hope. xxx
Hi again, Dave,
We’re gearing up for a podcast with a bit more of a political bent, as we stay away from blatant (How can you STAND this cretin?) politics as a rule. We’ve just put Ep11 to bed, and Ep12 will be politics through the lens of Fanny songs….. We’ll see if it works! It’s the last podcast before our presidential elections, and I hope we get at least a few people off their duffs to get out and vote – Pandemic be damned!
Alice
I’ve just been reminded of another such encounter, this time in France in 1970. I was walking back to my student lodgings in Toulouse late one freezing night when I was taken short and had to go behind a convenient wall on a building site.
Halfway through my unstoppable pee, heavy footsteps approached and a cop came round the corner! He just unzipped and joined me, saying “Vachement froid ce soir, n’est-ce pas?” Bloody cold tonight, innit? Again, a perfectly amicable conversation, which I suppose could easily have taken place in the States, too, given our common emergency. 😉 I’m told it’s a problem guys tend to have more than ladies…
Dave,
There’s a rim shot at the end of this. I just know it!
Alice
LOL.
Welsh Dave.
Oh my, ladies..
How I came upon your music, and what link took me there, I’m not sure…but today I heard Fanny for the first time! I’m a 57-year old from small-town Nebraska that grew up on punk rock/new wave (Buzzcocks, Generation X, 999, Minutemen, Ramones, Stiff Little Fingers, Replacements, Saccharine Trust, Husker Du, etc..) but also have a great appreciation for classic rock as well, and I was blown away by your rendition of “Badge!”
I don’t know if Cream has ever been slighted on their own song creation, but it’s as if your band was thought of when Clapton put pen to paper. I went back and watched some live performances by Cream to compare…and I’m sorry, Eric, but stand back…this song was made for Fanny. And Ginger, you’re such a bore on the skins. 🙂 You absolutely shredded on that song!
At any rate, I just wanted to chime in to let you know how much I appreciated all of your musicianship and your voices. Truly a delight coming across your material.
And BTW…so thankful we finally put nails in the coffin of that jackass in Washington DC, el Cheeto..
When the podcast comes out, at least where I am, by that time there are already 15 comments. How does that work? Some of these are regular listeners (yeah yeah I know I am too). I AM very sorry to hear about June. She will be victorious, of course, and write and play some more goddamn good rock and roll!!!
The podcasts post at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time. So depending on where you live, folks overseas or on the West Coast have a jump start on you perhaps.