Allee Willis Blog » TV/Radio

15Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Music Ring, Famous Songwriters and The Beaver!

15Nov 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1960’s Music Ring, Famous Songwriters and The Beaver!

I’m so NOT the type to wear a ring with a G-clef on it or have one of those cheesy license plates like GR8T BEAT. My gold records don’t hang in the living room so they’re the first things you see when you walk in and my clothes aren’t Bedazzled with musical notes. But this ring is so stone cold handtooled 1960s my finger had to have it.

I bought the ring about 10 years ago on eBay from someone in Memphis. I can feel a heavy barbecue-grease-guitar-picking vibe every time I slip it on. It also weighs a ton, quite a surprise as it looked like a cheap plastic gum ball machine prize ring in the photo online. So I end up wearing it a lot. Like I did Saturday night when I went out with my friend, Stan Zimmerman, though the hand I’m holding up in this photo unfortunately isn’t the one my fabulous music ring was on.

As unlikely as I am to have musical notes pasted all over my personal accouterments I’m just as unlikely to show up at a party where singers and songwriters take turns singing their own songs. I’m around music and singing all day; I don’t want to be around music and singing all night. Plus, despite my musical proclivities I don’t play an instrument so the possibility of me even being able to plunk the opening note of one of my songs at a party like this is nil. But there were the ring and I and Stan at a party that featured just that, thrown by voice coach to the stars, Eric Vetro, and songwriter/producer to the stars, Desmond Child. So many of my friends were there though that me, Stan and the ring had a great time despite not participating in the main event.

I go wayyyyyyy back with the first folks I saw, from (L-R) Rick Nowels, Maria Vidal, (me), Toni Basil, and Desmond Child.

Soooooo far back that I was practically in diapers when we met. Desmond and Maria were in a group called Desmond Child & Rouge who, in the mid 1970’s, sang at Reno Sweeney, a cabaret in Manhattan where I was the person who walked around the city by day nailing up fliers of upcoming performances. I saw them sing every night because in addition to my $20 a day salary I got to eat at Reno’s for free. Maria married Rick in the late 80’s. Between me, Desmond and Rick we’ve sold somewhere around 500,000,000 records and have had just about as many great times together. What we all had in common was also Bette Midler, the biggest thing to come out of the New York cabaret scene and the biggest jewel in our show biz clique. Even back in the 70’s Toni Basil was Bette’s choreographer. She was also one of my first friends and collaborators when I moved to LA in 1976. Here were are in 1982 at a party I threw for her when “Mickey” went #1.

Here we are Saturday night with singer Sarah Hudson and X-Factor’s Storm Lee thrown in.

Maria and I also spent a lot of time in a corner chatting with Frances Fisher.

Another friend from my 1970’s NY days at the party Saturday night was Allan Rich, who sang at Catch A Rising Star, the big comedy club where I was the hatcheck girl at the time. Allan got his big break when he was a shoe salesman and gave Barry Manilow a tape of his songs when he sold him some shoes.

I spent a lot of time talking to Michael Orland, the Music Director at American Idol and with whom I’m about to start writing tomorrow.

I’m completely sick of not being able to sing my own songs at parties like this so, just like an American Idol, I’m also going to rehearse a little medley of my hits with Michael so when Eric and Desmond throw this party again next year I can get up and sing instead of chatting through everyone’s songs because so many of my friends are there. Like songwriter extraordinaire, Diane Warren.

But despite how much musical talent was at the party there was clearly one star that shone brighter for me than any other and that was THE BEAVER!!!

Jerry Mathers, The Beaver, who I watched incessantly as a kid…

The same Beaver whose memorabilia I’ve faithfully collected all these years…

The same Beaver who’s going to come over in a few weeks and autograph all that memorabilia!! If I collected memorabilia from anything as recent as Desperate Housewives I would also invite Marc Cherry, seen here waiting for his car with me, Stan and The Beav.

All in all, it was a great night for me, Stan and my funky l’il music ring!

28Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Zenith Pedistal Clock Radio

28Oct 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Vintage Zenith Pedistal Clock Radio

I love this 1950/60s clock radio so much because it looks exactly like can openers of that same vintage did. I kept it in my kitchen for years, and with as much cooking as I did often held a tuna fish can up to it looking for what I hit to make it open. I always pressed this red button expecting some magic magnetized arm to pop out.

All it did was pump out that wonderfully static AM radio sound that I’ll never get sick of.

Even with all the audio equipment I own I’m still attached to the sound of hits spitting out of an AM radio.

When you flip the can opener clock radio around it’s a clock.

I can’t believe that the numbers on it are so conservative looking and not of a more Atomic design. I like my clocks more modern and distinctive looking.

The vinyl that wraps around the radio looks like textured peacock feathers. This was a very popular trend in vinyl and leather the 1960s.

I’ve been collecting transistor radios for decades. The Zenith pedistal can opener clock radio will always be one of my favorites.

27Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mr. T A-Team Transistor Radio

27Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Mr. T A-Team Transistor Radio

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I was never into The A-Team when it came out in the 1980’s. But lately, as I flip through channels in the wee hours of the morning trying to find something to fall asleep to, I’ve gotten completely obsessed with the reruns on Centric. I love all the low camera angles as truck tires screech by and slam dirt into the camera and explosions blow up right in your face. The direction has a clear POV and things that hover near the ground get as many close-ups as the actors do. And, of course, there’s always Mr. T, whose memorabilia I’ve slowly but surely collected over the years – banks, gold chain bubblegum, coloring books, puffy stickers, lunchboxes, air fresheners, and this Mr. T radio I recently received as a gift.

I have no idea what the significance of the shape is but I love that there’s a wrist strap so Mr. T can always swing by my side.

I’m one of the few songwriter/musician types who actually loves to hear their own music coming out of something as lo fi as this. In the old days, before the mid ’90s, it was imperative to listen to mixes of your songs over really crappy speakers so you could hear them as the average person was going to hear them. Most people, including myself, had little Auratone speakers in their recording studios, all in an effort to hear which instruments and vocals were audible and which weren’t in case someone was still pumping the sound out of one of these little Mr. T-like pocket jobs. Here I am in my studio in 1981 with one of my Auratones.

To test how a record would sound out of a more expensive radio, I had my first boombox, the heavier-than-a-bowling-ball/ first-of-its-kind stereo Sony cassette player that all the guys in Earth, Wind & Fire had the day I met them and started “September”. I bought myself one the next day, a huge extravaganza as I was broke, but it felt like the musical waters were shifting and I was on the brink of my first hit so the purchase felt justified. So as soon as I’d finish a mix I’d listen to it coming out of the Aurotones, then I’d pop a cassette of it into the fancy Sony and, last but not least, if I had any way of rigging an input into one of my transistor radios, I’d listen on that. Just to the other side of the Auratone in the photo was my collection of vintage transistor radios. It’s not a tragedy that they’re out of camera range as Mr. T was not yet among them. These, however, were:

By comparison, my Mr. T radio is pretty down and dirty basic. It doesn’t have fancy rhinestone eye dials like the owl or a wing that lifts to reveal the speaker like the ladybug. But it does come with a belt clip, which would be an excellent feature were it not for the fact that by using it the speaker holes would be jammed up against your body muffling what little sound this thing puts out in the first place.

These days people own Mr. T Flavorwave Turbo Ovens. I’m content with my 1983 A-Team radio and reruns.

07Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ Day – Earth Wind & Fire At the Hollywood Bowl with a Seventy Piece Orchestra and Fireworks!

07Sep 2010

Allee Willis’ Soul O’ Day – Earth Wind & Fire At the Hollywood Bowl with a Seventy Piece Orchestra and Fireworks!

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Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t go to concerts. I don’t like the crowds, I don’t like the walking, I don’t like someone singing next to me or standing up in front of me dancing. I understand this is the nature of concerts and I’m not out to change that so I was always happier sinking my head under a set of headphones and listening to the intricacies of the music rather than the idiosyncrasies of the crowd. This includes concerts where my own music is being performed. Of the hundreds and hundreds of songs of mine that have been cut I’ve seen maybe ten of them performed live. One of the most memorable nights ever for me was in 1979 at the Los Angeles Forum when half of the songs performed by Earth Wind & Fire were mine, including “September”, “Boogie Wonderland” and “In the Stone”. Although I’m blessed to have some of my tunes among their most popular I never saw the band perform live again. Until last Friday night when I saw a performance that blew my head off my shoulders and still has me skipping along the sidewalks of Los Angeles, a very happy girl.

On the slight chance you don’t know “September”, my first hit with the group, this will jog your memory. For “Boogie Wonderland” go here. There’s a lot more of them but that will suffice as context for this post.

About six months before “September” came out at the tail end of 1978 I started writing with Verdine White, founding member of EWF, pictured with me at the top of this post, and to this day my favorite bass player in the world. We wrote a theme song for a short-lived TV dance show called “Hot City” for a singer named Shelly Clark. Verdine married Shelly and also put me in one of my most important relationships ever, my collaboration with Maurice White, Verdine’s brother whose vision EWF was. Although I’ve seen Verdine often over the years I just saw Shelly for the first time last night since we did “Hot City”. That kind of time span will never happen again.

I wouldn’t have even been at this concert if my friend Nancy Ferguson hadn’t insisted that I go after almost every person I knew told me they were going. The one photo I didn’t take last night was of my little family group, Nancye, Jim Burns and Prudence Fenton, who I go everywhere with and who schlepped me to The Bowl on Friday. Here we are a couple of months ago at a vintage slide show:

I also hung out a lot with my excellent friend and EWF fan number one, Luenell.

Luenell, Shelly and I took excellent head shots throughout the evening.

Luenell came with Constance Tillotson. Amongst the three of us we’re known as as Twinkie (Constance), Luenell (Ding Dong) and Hostess Snowball (me).

The concert itself was astounding. It never hit me until it started that for the first time in my life I was about to hear my songs played with a live 70 piece orchestra. It was actually the first time Earth Wind and Fire heard their songs this way too.

Songwriting can be a lot of work. For me personally, many times along the way it was also a lot of trauma as when you’re a songwriter it’s oftentimes like being the attendant in a restroom; the restroom attendant is there to change the towels and service the patrons/ the songwriter is there to deliver options of music and lyrics and service the artist. I started doing art and videos and later, technology, because I was someone who needed to create all the time. Whereas much of my time as a songwriter was spent babysitting, waking up an artists’ brain from seemingly eternal sleep, waiting around for hours while they decided whether it should be an “a” or a “the” in the lyric or to go to a D in the music and me knowing it should be none of the above. But I have news for you – Every inch of blood, sweat and trauma was worth it when I saw EWF play “September” with a big mofo 70 piece live ass orchestra and fireworks going off throughout the song. I think you can tell how excited I was by this little movie I took on my Canon Elf.

People who filled the 17,000+ seats posted a zillion videos of this on YouTube. This one is shot from further back and shows all of the fireworks.

Now I know I’m about to stay up all night writing this because I keep finding all these videos shot from different seats at the Bowl. This one’s from about halfway back. As much as I’m tempted to post the at least 20 of these I’ve seen so far because I’m so eternally grateful for people around the world who’ve embraced “September” for all these years, I promise this will be the last:

About a year ago, when I first opened my social network, The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch @ AWMOK.com, me, Luenell, Verdine and Larry Dunn, original EWF keyboard player who played on all my EWF hits, did a slightly less orchestrated and lit performance of “September” when we performed it at the opening night party in an alley playing on thrift shop instruments.

Not at the party that night but always in my heart is Philip Bailey. As anyone who’s ever listened to EWF knows, Philip has just about the most extraordinary falsetto voice as any human being ever created. Until last night at the Bowl it had been at least 15 years since we’d seen each other.

I can’t tell you how happy I was to be reunited with Phillip. Just like I can’t tell you how proud I was to be part of this extraordinary group whose message has been rock-solid-2010-spiritually-evolved since they began recording in the late 60s. Phillip felt the same way about me as evidenced in this video that unfortunately cuts off right when he gets going. (I suppose I should be grateful for having even this much of the conversation on tape though truth be told, my heart felt like battery acid was lacing through it when I saw the camera dangling from the arm of the person I had given it to to shoot as opposed to being pointed at us capturing every single once-in-a-lifetime word.)

I know it’s hard to hear so I’ve stooped to typing out what Phillip said because it meant the world to me. Phillip: “Allee Willis is one of the greatest writers who ever lived or breathed. Without Allee Willis, a lot of those songs wouldn’t be here for us, for Earth Wind & Fire….”

Luckily I only went for a photograph when I saw Ralph Johnson, the third original member still in the group. We hadn’t seen each other since the early 80s. It will most certainly not take another 30 years for this to happen again.

Even the Godhead himself and the man without whom I would never be where I am today as a songwriter took the stage for a few moments. Maurice White hasn’t performed with the group for years and the audience went insane when he walked out. He left before the party afterwards but here’s a photo of us taken a few years ago at the opening of Hot Feet, a musical featuring all EWF music in which I had seven songs. We’re with two of my all time favorite songwriters in the universe, Ashford and Simpson, and LaChanze, who won the Tony for playing Celie in my musical, The Color Purple, playing just down Broadway from Hot Feet at the time.

Now back to The Bowl. Here I am with Greg Phillingaines, the completely brilliant artist and keyboard player who also was a prominent part of my musical history, not to mention playing on every important Michael Jackson solo record and about a trillion other ones you know. Not to mention that he’s also playing on “I’m Here”, a song of mine from The Color Purple that’s on Fantasia’s new CD.

I had the time of my life Friday night but I still don’t like the crowds, the walking, the people singing out of tune next to me or blocking my view because they’re up on their feet dancing. But if anything could change my mind it was this experience of 17,000 people going nuts while the group who changed my life, a dream orchestra and easily some of the most spectacular fireworks I’ve ever seen accompanied my music.

Ba-de-ya.

02Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1968 Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars Book and Saturday Night with Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder, 2010

02Aug 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – 1968 Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars Book and Saturday Night with Earth Wind & Fire and Stevie Wonder, 2010

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My life would have never been the same without Soul music. Growing up in Detroit, my teenage years were spent on the far right of the AM radio dial, down where the black stations were. I had no idea I would eventually become a hit songwriter especially because I never learned (to this day) how to play an instrument. Call it a limitation but I’m someone who believes in finding power in limitations. I learned everything I know from the Soul Stars in this book. Published in 1968 by Right On! magazine, a division of Tiger Beat, Right On! was THE commercial rag of blended Pop Soul, music that rippled with unbridled joy of freedom and self-expression, exuding confidence and spontaneity that sprung from a Black Is Beautiful social consciousness. Listening to THAT music was all music training I needed.

Here’s Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars as of 1968:

I know the names are small but squint to read them because they changed music forever and most of the records they made sound as contemporary today as the day they were mixed.

I loved every record the Supremes made though I loved the earliest ones the most.

The original version of “I Heard It through the Grapevine” by Gladys Knight and the Pimps slayed me. In 1973, “Midnight Train to Georgia” became and remains my single favorite background vocals record ever recorded.

Marvin Gaye’s songs recorded by the time Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars came out, especially “Wonderful One”, “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll be Doggone”, were my favorites. When he released his version of “I Heard It through the Grapevine” I think it became one of the greatest records ever made.

Merry Clayton was the believable female voice on The Rolling Stones ‘Gimme Shelter’. I got a promo copy of her solo LP in the early 70s when I was working at Columbia Records and played it constantly until I used it as a hat brim for an outfit that really screamed for an albeit impromtu hat.

The highest form of Godliness in Soul, Aretha’s ‘Soul ’69’ is still one of my favorite LPs ever.

I was very depressed when I graduated college having to leave all my friends at the University of Wisconsin. The only thing that kept me somewhat calm and optimistic on the long drive back to Detroit was hearing “Oh Happy Day” over and over again on the radio.

For as great as 1968 was in producing Super-Soul Stars it was still too early to include the group that honestly and for real changed my life, Earth Wind & Fire. In 1978 they gave me my first hit single, “September”, and in ’79 my first hit album, “I Am”, on which I co-wrote every song but two. Here’s they are in 1975:

Larry Dunn, keyboardist extraordinare, had the most awesome Afro of anyone in the group.

Though they too had spectacular Afros I hadn’t even heard of The Emotions when Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars came out in ’68. But years later they joined Earth Wind & Fire to sing my second hit, “Boogie Wonderland”.

Last Saturday night I went to The Waterfront Concert Theater in Marina Del Rey to see Elements of Fire, an EWF tribute led by Larry and Sheldon Reynolds, who joined the group as guitarist in the late 80’s and filled in for co-founder/lead singer and my favorite singer of all time, Maurice White, when he left the group. I bumped into Larry as I was walking in.

Once inside I met up with one of my favorite friends and funniest persons alive, Luenell, who was introducing the band.

If one just judges the music and love affair between performers onstage and the audience, the evening was spectacular. I spent two exquisite hours enjoying some of my favorite music on earth, several songs of which were mine. I was surrounded by friends from back in the day. But that’s where the party ended. Once the evening was in the hands of The Waterfront “Concert Theater” it was a 3, no, 23 ring, circus of errors.

As a purveyor of kitsch and aforesaid strong believer in rolling with limitations if you can’t do anything to change them, these are the moments I must take a breath and remember I’m blessed. Rather than chasing down the manager to strangle him/her I just squint and look at the evening as a massive wheel of brie spilling off a way-too-small buffet table and know I will remember it as a stand out in the annals (or anals depending on how hard you’re squinting) of Kitsch.

The screw-ups started a full week before I even got to The Waterfront “Concert Theater” when I tried to buy tickets over the phone and talked to a chain of robots, none of whom could help me other than tell me that dinner was served during the show. I would’ve bought tickets online but after five minutes of searching the site for a link to the box office there was no link to tickets for the band I wanted to see. I finally bypassed the club and got tickets through the tour manager. But even with them printed out in hand you still had to stand in line to pick up the real tickets which were the identical printed sheets of paper. Which would have been slightly more tolerable if the air conditioning had been working.

Soaked like a mop, I went to the bathroom to freshen up. I know this place is called The Waterfront because it sits on the harbor. I just wish they would’ve confined the standing bodies of water to outside. Nothing short of a few sticks of dynamite could’ve unplugged this:

I moved on to sink number two but unless I had brought my bathing suit and spent the night sitting on the bathroom counter dipping my toes to try and cool down from the malfunctioning air conditioning I still was left with no place to wash my hands.

I included the following photo because it’s important for you to see the primo condition vintage 1950’s rayon shirt I have on. Covered with starbursts, it’s one of the best Atomic Age shirts I own. I only wear it on special occasions when I know I want to feel good.

Little did I know as I swept past the Waterfront’s beautifully finished bathroom walls…

… and well-attended to wastebasket…

… what would happen the second I got to my seat in the “VIP” section, three bridge tables plopped in the middle of the one and only narrow aisle that led to the stage and at least 20 other people who would need a waitress or a bathroom throughout the night. Though we were in slightly better shape than hundreds of other sardines smashed together in a room with only one exit. I finnnnnaly stepped over enough bodies to crumble into my seat and a waitress dumps a bottle of beer and a full whiskey sour on my beautiful, special, rare and beloved Atomic shirt. Ice cubes dribbled down my back coating both sides of the garment with sticky goo and deposited yet another body of standing water in my chair, the kind that has ass indentations carved into the wood so any liquid just sits there. Despite not being enough to soak up the mess on me, my chair, the floor, the people next to me and my once beautiful but now permanently spotted leather bag the waitress returned with six towels, a blessing as she only brought one thin paper napkin when she finally delivered our meal, the one and ONLY item on the “full dinner” menu the robots had told me was available, a Styrofoam plate with a tiny pile of bagged salad, an unidentifiable mound of squishy stuff that was probably going for Jumbalaya and “Chicken Strips”, 4 tiny frozen Costco chicken legs. As Luenell said when she got on stage, “Don’t be tellin’ a black woman you got chicken strips and then bring her no chicken legs dripping with sauce so now her lipstick’s smeared all over her face and she got to get up on stage. That’s dangerous.”

After about a half an hour I adjusted to the fact that I was stuck in a beer and whiskey soaked outfit in a club with little to no air conditioning and no sink to clean any of it or me off. The music was SO good – “September”, “Boogie Wonderland”, “Reasons”, “Serpentine Fire”, “Can’t Hide Love”, “I Can’t Let Go”, “In The Stone”, “Getaway” “Fantasy”, “That’s the Way of the World” and on and on. I even got used to having my chair shoved in my back every time anyone needed to get by. Of the hundreds of times it happened that night thankfully one time it was by this guy in the blue shirt:

He had many hits by the time he made it into Right On’s 100 Super-Soul Stars in 1968.

Ultimately, I think covering a sweat soaked body with an outfit made of beer and whiskey made Stevie’s medley of “Shining Star” and “Superstition” even better for me. Despite the constant efforts of The Waterfront Concert Jail I Mean Theater to do otherwise, it was the kind of night where you couldn’t help feeling like a Soul Star when you left.

(For more of me, EWF & Luenell on an evening that was far better managed, see the opening party for my social network, The Allee Willis Museum of Kitsch at AWMOK.com, last September 21st, the date that’s in the opening line of the song, “Do you remember the 21st night of September…”. Larry Dunn and founding EWF member Verdine White, greatest bass player who ever lived, played for anyone who wanted to sing kariokee of “September”. Though there are no drinks being spilled, no germ infested bathrooms, lots of food, air conditioning and folks who worked there who actually got past the first grade, it’s still fantastic viewing material for anyone who likes me, Earth, Wind & Fire, Luenell or Super-Soul Stars in general.)

Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B12TPKuVcSY

“September”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKXU2o6NVT8

“Boogie Wonderland”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nj1tzW4kyMg

19Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Murder, She Wrote Board Game

19Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Murder, She Wrote Board Game

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I never really watched Murder, She Wrote during its run on CBS from 1984-1996. I was in a very heavy songwriting and technology phase and although I always had the TV on – or should I say TVs as I had 28 of them at the time, one against every wall in each room so I wouldn’t miss a moment – I never had the sound up. All I ever watched then anyway were comedies. I didn’t have the patience for any of the more complex murder shows. To appreciate and understand what was going on in them I would have needed the sound up and once that happened it became more about me listening to the score and looking at the hairdos and fashions than actually following the plot. Following the intricacies of a murder case demands concentration. Just like trying to figure out how to play the Murder, She Wrote game does:

I know the rules are too hard to read this small but I devoted 500 pixels to trying to make them readable and, in my opinion, anything that’s supposed to be played for fun should not demand this arduous of focus.

I also don’t like boardgames or books or any other kind of memorabilia based on something that began as a TV show when you don’t get an actual photo of the star.

Although this illustration kind of looks like a (Paint-By-Number) Angela Lansbury it also looks like 3 trillion other women who didn’t start using skin cream early enough and have always kept their hair in a convenient and generic bob. I should know as I’ve seen the real deal Jessica Fletcher up close and personal when I was up for a Tony in 2006 for The Color Purple.

In 1995, Murder, She Wrote met its demise when CBS moved it to Thursday nights where it crumbled faster than a lame alibi against NBC’s reigning behemoth, Friends. Normally I wouldn’t be happy to see someone as iconic as Angela Lansbury slide down the tubes but seeing as I wrote “I’ll Be There for You” (the theme from Friends) if someone had to win I’m glad it was who was paying me royalties and not the series that spawned this board game.

05Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Holiday Cleanup with the Ronco Miracle Broom

05Jul 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Holiday Cleanup with the Ronco Miracle Broom

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In 1973 when the Ronco Miracle Broom sprung on the market half of the households in America started vacuuming their shag with this revolutionary cordless electric vacuum cleaner. That’s reason enough to collect it now but with products like this, especially those made in the 70’s and especially in the genre of products sold on TV – the Miracle Broom was among the first of hard-sell filmed TV commercials hawking new and unique products birthing what would later be known as the infomercial – oftentimes the box was as good as the product that came in it. Not to say that this Streamlined Moderne-meets-70’s-modern looking gadget isn’t great in and of itself but the graphics showing suggested uses of the product are even better. Blown out color, cheesy furniture and excellence in hand modeling being some of the pillars of that greatness. Here’s one of my favorite shots:

The crumbs are SO over-exaggerated. I’d like to know who eats toast leaving crumbs this big and in this formation? Only a chipmunk or someone without teeth was capable of creating this mess.

For this shot Ronco spared no expense on the tablecloth. Then again, they wanted you to concentrate on the crumbs. Seems to me they should’ve called the toothless person back to create better crumbs though as these don’t seem that serious.

I love how the ashtray is overturned in this next one. Even more, I love the pattern on the tie of the man wielding the Miracle Broom. Even more, I love that Ronco was evolved enough to have men doing some of the cleaning.

I can’t figure out what spilled on the following car seat. It’s somewhere between Red Hots, vomit or that crumbled fauna stuff you buy at craft stores to make little trees out of.

The Ronco Miracle Broom was the stuff of legend in the 1970’s, a massive lunge forward in the revolution of products designed with style, convenience and innovation in mind that began in the post-World War II Atomic Age. I may have shed the shag carpeting over the years but the double D’s are always on hand to pop into my Miracle Broom whenever I’m too lazy to completely chew my toast.

21Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Music Muffs Radio Headphones

21Jun 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Music Muffs Radio Headphones

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Without question, these are by far my favorites of the 50 or 60 pairs of headphones that I own. Although of no use whatsoever in my recording studio as their sole purpose is to wear them to listen to the radio they still are the best looking set of phones I’ve ever seen. headphones-music-muffs_6724

I oftentimes wear these two-speaker-but-not-really-stereo Music Muffs when a collaborator is working on something that I either don’t view as crucial to the record or something I know it’s better to just let them run with without any kind of censoring from a collaborator. So rather than sit there and get annoyed or bored I just tune them out and listen to AM radio.

I didn’t bring my Music Muffs with me on my trip up north to work with Pomplamoose where I am right now racing to finish three SMASH songs as the voluminous amount of percussion instruments that I stuffed into my suitcase didn’t allow room for the precious radio headphones cargo.

Pomplamoose has their own headphones but there’s not enough inputs into their audio interface so only two people have the luxury of listening to what they’re harmonizing to. The other person steers blind.

Most people couldnt work this way. But this group, just like me, thrives on spontaneity and working within insane limits, all of which adds life to the music. This always happens when one must rely on their imagination to create great sounds as opposed to their pocketbook or massive array of equipment.

Though I do wish my Music Muffs had made the trip as the hard drive that I tripped over that all the video was being directly recorded to is being rushed to the hard drive doctor as we speak. In the meantime, I’m writing this post and trying to stay calmmmmmmmmmmm without the aid and distraction of beautiful mono sound.

And we just keep on singing…

30May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Party Jocs” Coasters and Top Chef Masters at Street

30May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – “Party Jocs” Coasters and Top Chef Masters at Street

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In anticipation of the Memorial Day holiday tomorrow and the many glasses that are about to be lifted these Party Jocs drink cozies make it easy to keep track of your drink and keep your hands moisture free as you chug it down.

Wednesday night I went to my favorite restaurant, Street, in anticipation of lifting a glass in celebration as Chef Susan Feniger won another round of Top Chef Masters on TV. Not only was she one of the final four but she had won 75% of her battles so far.

I went with my good friend, Stu James, who was also Harpo in my musical, The Color Purple. Although I didn’t have the Party Jocs with me and no glasses are evident in this photo we took with Susan we were all in a glass-lifting celebratory mood as the show began.

What’s great about being at Street on the nights that Top Chef Masters airs is that not only can you order any of the completely and insanely inventive food on the menu but also little trays of whatever Susan cooks on the show that night are passed around. We started out with Lamb Kakta Meatballs drizzled with date and carob molasses…

… followed by the Tatsutage Fried Chicken marinated with soy, mirin and sake and crispy fried in rice batter, topped with spicy kewpie mayonnaise sauce.

Then came the Burmese Lettuce Wraps with gin thoke style lentils, toasted coconut, peanuts, fried onions and sesame ginger dressing…

.. and the Paani Puri, spiced potato, chutneys and sprouted beans in crispy puffs of yogurt-cilantro water dipped dough…

… with the Brazilian Acaraje not far behind – black-eyed pea fritters with palm oil, garlic and cilantro stuffed with citrus cabbage slaw and malagueta chile sauce.

Then we topped it off with barbecued pork sliders:

Obviously Stu and I spent as much time taking photos of each other eating as we did talking, all the while watching Susan toil away on TV. The chefs’ challenge this week was to make food “fit for the gods of the heavens”.

Susan was assigned Aphrodite, goddess of love. She went for it with one of the signature dishes at Street, Kaya Toast.

Kaya Toast is a Singapore street cart experience – toasted bread spread thick with coconut jam and sweet butter that you dip in a soft fried egg drizzled in dark soy and white pepper. When you bite into it it fills your mouth with such an unexpected burst and multi-textural slide down the throat that your whole body jolts with the sensation. I can always tell when someone orders Kaya for the first time because there’s always a long drawn out ‘oohHHhhhh’ that accompanies it. That’s love. And it’s certainly fit for Aphrodite.

As individual servings of Kaya Toast were passed around to all of us in the restaurant Susan raced to finish the dish on the show.

As the judging began, the whole restaurant got ready to lift their glasses to celebrate yet another triumph. At that moment I wished I had brought the Party Jocs with me so Stu and I could have toasted in style not to mention hand comfort.

But the only thing about the Kaya Toast is that it looks like a very simple dish. Everyone always thinks it’s going to taste like a grilled cheese sandwich.

And that’s what judge Jay Rayner couldn’t get out of his head, that it looked like a PB&J and he didn’t find that very sexy. So Susan went down in flames…

But I’m here to tell you that it took balls to make a dish like that, on first impression so plain and simple but upon tasting it a cornucopia of textures, tastes and sensations. So come to Street if you want to taste food fit for the gods. And to Jay Rayner and the remaining three male chefs I lift my glass, now adorned with its comely 1960’s fashion statement, and wish them all very happy highballs as they cook to the finish.

27May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Art Linkletter “People Are Funny” Party Game

27May 2010

Allee Willis’ Kitsch O’ The Day – Art Linkletter “People Are Funny” Party Game

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Yesterday, iconic TV host Art Linkletter passed away. Even as a little kid Art seemed a little square to me but there’s no doubt that he pioneered many of the formulas of today’s TV shows with segments like celebrity guests, cooking, talking to kids and audience quizzes. His big two hits which between them ran from 1952 to 1970, House Party and People Are Funny, were massively popular. This ‘party game with cards’ spun out of the latter and continued in people’s living rooms what was so popular on Art’s shows – getting everyday people to do dorky stunts like trying to cash a check written on a watermelon and make fools of themselves, oftentimes ending up with a pie in the face for failing. It’s obvious that Linkletter’s tactics are still very much alive on TV today.

As simple as the concept of the TV show was, the instructions for this 1954 game made by Whitman Publishing Company, known mostly for the books they made of popular TV shows, are exhaustive. I would’ve been tired from reading them and gone to sleep without starting the game.

But I think the gist is that one card describes an aspect of your character, the second your occupation, the third a hobby and the fourth assigns an attribute to all of it.

Then something like Charades happens. I swear I’d be in the kitchen baking brownies as I have no patience for long instructions OR Charades.

A little known fact about the TV show People Are Funny is that it pioneered computerized dating in 1956, matching up couples who answered questions from a Univac computer.

In the late 60’s, Art made this commercial for ‘Circus-Vac-In-A-Box’ Circus Nuts with his daughter Diane.

They also recorded this message about the necessity of clear communication between parent and child:

In 1972, Diane jumped out of the window and met her demise six stories down. Art then became a crusader for the perils of LSD.

I guess most people would show you a classic Art clip from his most famous tv segment on House Party, “Kids Say the Darndest Things”, but as an avid aKITSCHionado I must fast forward to 1990 and show you Art and his chairs.

So, Art, your time has finally come…

Your People Are Funny game caused people to think about themselves in different ways and try new things and I’m always in favor of that.

R.I.P. Art Linkletter.