Mother’s Finest
I have been loving the Internet this week, you guys. Despite the latest hideous Facebook makeover (do they even have a QA process?), it’s continued to be a great tool for finding long-lost people whom I adore, and also for finding out that my friend Scott should totally move to the country. Over on Twitter, an application that would be perfect if it offered a little more control, someone’s engineered a little more control with TwitterSnooze, which allows you to stop following someone for a limited amount of time – an ability whose usefulness may escape you if you don’t, say, follow a person who liveTweets three Wednesday night TV shows that you don’t watch.
Also using the Internet, I was able to track down a store in the greater LA area (Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park) that carried dairy-free chocolate bunnies so I don’t have to order that crap from Portland with dry ice and such to give my allergic child a happy holiday. And yes, my kid DOES have to have a chocolate bunny at Easter; we’re not religious, but we feel very strongly about inexplicable people and animals who show up your house to bring you junk.
But here is where I had the most fun. If you have had the misfortune to be cornered by me on the subject of American Idol this season, you know I kind of like contestant Adam Lambert. Like, to the point where I wish all those other people would quit interrupting The Adam Lambert Show with their singing and whatnot. One of the reasons I like him is that he is a big ol’ record geek; not like I’m short on those people in my world, but I don’t know many who are 27. And what really surprised me was that we share a favorite completely obscure band, Mother’s Finest. Here, watch Adam talk about them with the fevered eyes of the true believer:
Yeah. I was happy to find out about the Germany thing, because I, who could technically be his mom, am too young to know about Mother’s Finest; I spent my youth hanging out with a bunch of musicians about 10 years my senior, some of them from the South. That’s my excuse. And I’d wondered what his was.
Say Rufus Featuring Chaka Khan and Led Zeppelin formed a supergroup. You’re kind of close to what they sound like. You cannot imagine how dynamic they were (I assume still are) live. I have been to approximately one gazillion concerts – most of them by people who are considered great performers – and nobody touches MF. You can’t squeeze that kind of power into the space of a YouTube video, but here’s a track from what I believe is the concert Adam described seeing:
So, back to my point about loving the Internet: People much younger than I, possibly younger than Adam, are seeing that first video on YouTube, looking up something very much like the second video, going, “Hey, this band is great! Why haven’t I heard of them?” I’ve been helping some people out with collections of MP3s available on Amazon that make a good $10 introduction.
So: Because a kid who is a frontrunner on American Idol in 2009 turned on a television in Germany in 2003 and mentioned it on a clip that was only available on iPhones and on YouTube, one of the most underrated bands of the early ’70s gets a new burst of life.
That’s just cool.
Yeah, Adam Lambert is pretty amazing. I would like to see him sing “The Last Goodbye” at some point. Not that Grace needs a burst of life but can you imagine how many Idol watchers have no idea who Jeff Buckley is? I am not even that big a fan of that type of singing but it’s fun to see someone who really knows music do well. I think that Megan Joy is interesting in a Fiona Apple sort of way but I don’t know enough about her to know if she “gets it” on that level and she’s of course, too affected I guess.
I felt exactly the same way about Megan – I think there’s a spark there but she wasn’t making it happen. Now the only 2 I’m actually interested to see what they do from week to week are Lambert (in a good way) and Gokey (in a bad way). The others are varying degrees of good, but kinda dull.
My new Adam song pick is “Hold Back the Night” by Sinead O’Connor. Speaking of things that will never happen!
When I saw that little video thing with Adam Lambert talking about MF, I almost fell out of my chair. They were my neighbors growing up, BB their drummer was a great family friend. I was pretty young, but even then I knew they were special. It was a pretty regular event for them to set up and play at pool parties….man the late 70s early 80s were such a fantastic time. I’m 43 years old, and I don’t typically give 2 hoots about American Idol..but that Adam kid is pretty special. His father did him a great service by exposing him to GOOD music at an early age, it’s obviously served him well. Funny also he mentions his first exposure to Bowie’s Diamond Dogs record…that was the first piece of music I ever actually owned, given to me by my dad as well.