Favoritesong Wednesday #2

How soon the week rolls back around. Here we are, hello Wednesday. Last weeks track was a killer, but on closer reflection I'm not sure it is really my favorite song. I was just really excited about it at the time. I felt like big dancin' on the floor.




Otis Redding - Cigarettes and Coffee
(from the Soul Album, 1966)

This is maybe my favorite song. It probably ranks in my top 5 listened to songs ever. I wrote a paper about it for Clifford Antone's class on the blues that talked about how Dock of the Bay is a natural lyrical progression from songs like this one. I've posted the paper here on this new blog. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning the Casa V, a blogger just needs some room to stretch out you know what I'm saying.

But back to the task at hand. Cigarettes and Coffee. Lyrically this is closer to Sam Cooke's work than your average Otis Redding song, Otis generally doesn't sing about specific scenes as often, his style is more conversational than Cooke's. This plays to his strength on Cigarettes and Coffee, he can focus lyrically on setting a vivid late-night scene and the listener can easily imagine the content of the conversations between Otis and his lover based on the colloquial tone of most of Otis's other writing.


BONUS:



Awe inspiring video from the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967. Otis starts by dedicating it to all the mini-skirts out there, and then you're treated to 3 minutes of the most beautifully happy women the late 60's had to offer. At 3:08 it cuts to Otis for a fiery as hell finale, complete with a fake stage-exit.

(I've realized that this is the second time I've posted this Monterrey Pop video. Relive an old post about me singing the song at a karaoke bar in Boulder here.)

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Second Night Out in Boulder

Much more successful.
Roommate #1 and I headed to a karaoki bar called the Dark Horse. Incredibly unpretentious western themed bar that had some sort of a circle fetish. There were wheels of many different shapes and sizes behind the bar, spinning by the power of some "dark horse" or perhaps a motor. Also the ceiling was lined with parts from old carriages, completely the wheel aesthetic.

I sang a feverish rendition of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground and somehow got drunk for free. I also performed a slow midi-ed out version of Try a Little Tenderness by Otis Redding. I was really planning on singing the live Monterrey Pop Festival version, where he really rips into it, but the tempo never sped up. I kinda ignored that fact though and did pretty much the same adlibs he did in Monterrey (basically running out of breath on the chorus and shouting got got got got got and now now now), just at an incredibly drawn out tempo.



There were a few scene looking kids watching me and cheering me on for the Otis song and I talked to one of them afterwards. He was wearing a black jacket with rhinestones in the shape of a space shuttle so I asked him if he was into electro music. He said no, he was just into outer space, but he could see how I'd say that. He's in a garage rock band around these parts called Happy Jawbone Family Band that is actually fucking good. I'm curious to spend some time with this guy.

Afterwards we went to a place called The Foundry which was kind of confused about whether it wanted to be a pool hall of the Thursday night spot for your scantily clad college skank. It was a sprawling place, probably 10 pool tables and an adequate raised dance floor, in addition to a rooftop patio that was pretty sweet. The DJ was playing the hits. He definitely mixed One More Time by Daft Punk into Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back into Salt n Pepa's Push It. So no brainer-generic party DJing. People were eating it up, to be expected.

Afterwards I grabbed a gyro and hit the sack. A much better night than the last.

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