LADY GAGA HERITIC LIVE ROCK CRITIC TEN

LIVE  ROCK  CRITIC  TEN    LADY  GAGA  HERETIC

Justine Timberlake hosted Saturday Night Live May 12th 2011, Lady Gaga was the musical guest.

"Born This Way", all of the artistic composing skills of a Casio Auto Play. Grabbing her crotch twice Gaga walks forward, does the Galvanic frog leg thing whirls the ridiculous blond ponytail, walks back, walks ahead, spins with little style, squats, slips and straightens up. The meaningless choreography marches on more like a fitness session than art.

What about the band? Am I hopelessly a perfectionist not willing to accept the mediocre pumping bump and grind, the soulless blasting sameness, even when the tune changes. I find this hard to accept as top level Rock and Roll.

Heresy! I am sure that the music pumps along, complete with Gaga from yesterday backing Gaga today , Live?  sing the stop motion, slow motion and infinite number of reviews which the DVR makes possible I see guitars which are not being played. Acquire a DVR recording and watch the guitarist's hand block the guitar strings. Carefully watch the picking when it is not happening. Am I mistaken? Are these not really musicians but just more dancers artlessly fabricating Lady Gaga's intellectually and morally bankrupt posturing, not actually musicians creating the music. It seems to me to be to a large degree prerecorded. During the performance Lady Gaga walks over to centre stage and some prerecorded Gaga voice with a hyped up autotune sings out "Judas, Judas, Judas.......". In my opinion this is an act of heresy.Furthermore, during interviews and live on stage at Madison Square Gardens Gaga claims that she does not lip sync; singing along is every bit as tacky as lip syncing and it could even be worse  when these glitches are an obvious lack of precision skill and style.

I say to myself: Who writes such crap music as "Born This Way". It reminds me of the Eurhythmic's tune "Sweet Dreams". Does some Patch Blender say, Steff, lets save a lot of time I can whip up a patch, or is the mind of the composer Lady Gaga that bland repetitious and strident over nothing? I knew when Gaga accused "Judas  Judas  Judas......." that she was referring to her former "boy" friend Luc Carl.

What do I find wrong with the Lady Gaga vocals? They don't really fly. They pump and growl. The vocal and the choreography portray a chaotic meaninglessness but for the constant repetition. Is there a more skillful method of reinforcement than repetition? I surely hope so. Pause the DVR and witness ugly posturing, in my  opinion, open crotched splay legged dissolution. I find the dancing by the Gaga troupe to be ugly and unsynchronized. I know that the lack of symmetry and the inconsistent timing of identical dance moves is not intentional, it is sloppy and unskilled. Pause the DVR again and witness ugly facial expressions  o defiance and pouting pouffery. Much of the choreography is reminisent of  really cheap go go bar dancing by amatuers.

There is the phenomena of the Phantom Chorus. I hear echoes of voices and voices in the background and there are no other singers. Stefani is singing along with prerecorded or software produced Sefani. The fakery is used in the studio with equal illegitimacy but during a live performance by a self  proclaimed live performer, it is heresy. It goes against every honest principal of her performance and the back vocal keeps on, I am sure it is not an echo.

The song "Born This Way" degenerates into yowling out the slogan over and over. The repetition is irritating. Another feature of the second number is constantly changing songs. Unrelated and conflicting song parts exist then disappear forever themeless and without continuity.

Lady Gaga performances are self aggrandizing exercises which I feel do not entertain so much as be "awesome". While I was watching "Family Guy" there was a screening of a 1985 Mick Jagger - David Bowie dance video, "Dancing in the Streets" , the editorial from "Family Guy" was not complementary. I found the simplicity and normalcy of the set to be real. Jagger and Bowie dance happily and with enthusiasm and the message is friendly and all inclusive. I really liked this primitive low tech video. The dance moves are fluid and skillful and they portray and connotate something which is real and nice.

While I was doing research I noticed that Jagger is going to form a new band?

PAUL SIMON LIVE ROCK CRITIC

 PAUL SIMON         LIVE   ROCK  CRITIC  NINE

Saturday Night Live May 14th 2011 was hosted by Ed Helms, Paul Simon was the musical guest. Paul Simon and his band are highly polished well rehearsed professionals who play well together. They are a large band with a drummer and a percussionist, bass, four guitars at times, there are three keyboards, a harmonium flutes and whistles and more percussion. The result is a pleasing interplay of complex rhythms Paul Simon's trite compact phrasing is integrated into the music that he is directing.               

This is not a type of music which appeals to me, it is easy listening. In his first song "Rewrite" the band enters an ethereal plane with transcendental imagery and fantasy progressions, really good really well rehearsed. This song is reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel whipped into a light froth quickly whipped like cream with some sugar and vanilla.

An alternative view was provided by my typist who said "Same old chord patterns and plunking used again ". And she further accuses Paul Simon of being like Bruce Coburn, same chords same rhythm

Paul Simon does a great job of  sliding on the acoustic guitar I really can't imagine getting so much sound out of hammering on with the chord hand to slide down, baroom, it is pretty good.

The second song"So Beautiful or So What" is more upbeat and less easy listening than the first song. Paul Simon does a nice job of creating leads on his hollow body electric guitar. The repetition in the vocals began to irritate me. For the type of person whom I think would enjoy this type of music the most, the repetition might not be a problem as part of easy listening is not paying that close attention as I do to music I am listening to.


There is a haunting sarcastic background vocal which is mirrored by a guitar line, but I am not even really sure, I couldn't spot the source of these parts. The entire band does a great job of performing this second song. Paul Simon can sing. I don't get that much out of the lyrics beyond the constantly repeated refrains but I wonder if I expect too much, I am continually unimpressed with the constant repetition in so many songs I hear. The repetition is thought to be part of a formula, I think, time to find new formula and put some intellectual excitement into new songs. For the audience intended to hear the music, Paul Simon and his band were all right for Saturday Night Live.

Postscript:  Ted Nugent and ------ Huckabee on Fox News, damn, that Ted Guy can play guitar what!

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LUPE FIASCO LIVE ROCK CRITIC EIGHT

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LUPE FIASCO LIVE ROCK CRITIC EIGHT

LUPE FIASCO LIVE ROCK CRITIC EIGHT

LUPE FIASCO LIVE ROCK CRITIC EIGHT

Monday May 9th 2011. Lupe Fiasco performed "Words I Never Said" live on Steven Colbert's show. Skylar Grey performed with him. The band was at times a circus, a great rollicking rock machine,. At times: live performance is about having little poor performance and as much as possible of great inspired and best new extensions and improvisations in live performance.

Skylar Grey is only slightly off, could be some misguided guru's idea of cool. The concessions of a rock singer to hip hop are low low rider pants with a drop crotch on a chick yet the style is ugly on a gorgeous women and the unkempt part of her appearance is demeaning and subjugating a beautiful body and a really pretty face.

When Lupe Fiasco starts to rap, despite the fact that he is talking I can only make out the repo part of the rap. The hopping around on stage, hip is the cool part and hop is the dance. The frantic hand waving once agian brings out my ethnocentrophobia. I am looking at ridiculous hand waving, some high speed gang sign. The rythm of hip hop weather Lady Gaga does it or Lupe Fiasco does it sounds like kids on cook pans rhythm.

Perhaps Lupe is responsible for writing the material or producing the band. I do not understand the importance of Lupe otherwise. During the process of researching Lupe Fiasco I am once again shocked to find this person is an award winning and highly praised rap or hip hop artist. I will write something particularly about rap and hip hop and how I think that the acceptance of this amateurish form of performance is a con job.

The predictability of the moves and the bling and the imitation of the appearance and style of Gangster rappers of long ago is really old. I find Skylar and the band overall to at best be mediocre. I think Lupe Fiasco is lousy,mouthing and moving a performance which in my opinion has no redeeming factors

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LIVE ROCK CRITIC EXTRA EDITION

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LIVE ROCK CRITIC EXTRA EDITION

LIVE ROCK CRITIC EXTRA EDITION

Lady Gaga Monster Hype May 8th 2011 @ Madison Square Gardens

I was quite intimidated when I fist thought that I would review the upcoming Lady Gaga Monster Ball Tour. I review musical performances which are accessible and free and you don't have to wait in line or get body searched. I had thought I would stick to Saturday Night Live music guests. The hype brings me out. When a performer is touted by networks and promoters and recieves awards and commendations I have tao take a look.

I began to view Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour in the middle, the digital video recorder was operating and I started watching just about where some shelving stocking machinery lifted the lady and some sort of standup bass with two electronic devices fastened to it and if I remember correctly Lady had a pervert overcoat on which is an obscuring enveloping garment and gaga does throw the garment off exposing herself and even plays with herself or vogues the act of masturbation. More Michael Jackson channelling with shamelessly imitative of Thriller choreography and costuming.

The dancers are militantly homo-erotic. I am drawn to remember the videos of the young girl form Winnipeg Manitoba who due to her Youtube fame had a duet with Canada's singing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, one of my all time favourite video subjects. Harper was baby kissing of course during Election Canada 2011. Lady Gaga is a favourite and idol of Maria Aragon who, performing a Lady Gaga tune became a Youtube success. Maria Aragon who is ten years old appeared with Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga's much hyped performance on television could be viewed by many children.Costumes and violent, degenerate and sadomasochist connotations and appearance characterized much of the Madison Square Gardens performance. In some attempt to be over the top to excess what would children and you people think was cool? By the connotations and Lady Gaga's own promotion of perverted or undefined sexual activity, does some unsuspecting young boy or girl hang out with oh so cool and end up sodomized or tortured? What exactly are the connotations of sexual dysfunction being so cool suppose to mean? And there is the huge musical disappointment.

Stepfani Germanulta starts her Madison Square Gardens Monster Ball Tour by fawning and whining her way into her dressing room. A huge proportion of the two hours is taken up by video of Stephani changing costumes and talking absolute nonsense and self aggrandizing look at me I succeeded. I found something which is done on stage that I despise even more than rap.

If Stephani had any eroticism attached to her when that gross homosexual stood over her and she did her he likes girls he likes boys crap, she

began to become repulsive and I began to notice fat rolls at hip and panty line. All the marching around the stage, I think that was old a quarter of a century ago.

Stephani's voice, it is good, it is on key. Thank God for small mercies. She can play the piano, I am not really a piano expert, the fingering seemed a bit simply to me. The keyboards which Sepfani played sucked and the crowd went wild. I really can't believe how undiscerning people have become. Folks, you are not cheering at an athletic event. Save your cheers whistling and stomping for exceptional performance.

If you close your eyes, Stepfani does not sound much different from those stereotypical female TV vocals which haunt the memories of my childhood. Schmaltz simply sucks, no matter how you drape or costume yourself. One last comment before I get onto the music. What is the red smearing on Stepfani's body suppose to mean? Something for the children again.

The music. I have this same old song over and over impression. Homogeneous meaningless glam rock was shocking or interesting at first, but I think that this hogwash is as dated as the marching around stage. There are numerous musicians which purports a wall of sound but it's a bit like a bunch of cars with really good stereos all turned up loud in a traffic jam. It's noisy it's active and bouncy and frenetic and it continually promises to take us somewhere fabulous but it never does.

I often spend quite a bit of time finding out everybodys' name but I am not going to bother. The guitar player with no shirt on and two studded belts and the skinny pants. Is he really any good? He does a couple of short flashy solos which are hyped as if they were magnificent but they are not. The bass player makes some cool sounds but over what I ask myself.

Lady Stephanie Gaga does sing and play the piano very well. The other time on stage and in the dressing room is filled with tasteless posturing and endless overextended vogueing. The costumes have little relation to the music except in the fantasy sequence where Stepfani wears an animated costume and that is actually what the whole thing is all about. All through the performance I kept observing that yes these people were playing and dancing but some overall style or sense of performance was missing. The overall impression and impact of the show was one of confusion rather than action, and violence and depravity rather than energy and action.

Stepfani tries to establish "street creds"

with her arrival in an old jean jacket with two inches of roots showing below her beehive. The spikes on the gloves once again channelling Micheal Jackson. Geeks never get cool Stepfani no matter what they wear and the negative connotations of your trappings vastly outweighs what ever cool you think you convey thus. The punks and the queers are really cool Stef in a very tiny world which is part of a huge city. Really screwed up stuff is thought to be cool in tiny ethnocentric cuts and enclaves all over the world. Like at Osama's. I am proudly ethnocentricophobic I think "in crowds" suck.

Huge hype and in some ways a waste of air time and audience time. The message as well. I am a heterosexual male with children. Are you trying to tell me Stepfani that I am not cool and these geeks and misfits clad in Thunderdome costumes are, what would Mel Gibson think, these poufs are cool?

Whatever sexual dysfunction you are trying to work out Stepfani why don't you keep it on the downlow, especially on TV. Much of your creative original work reeks of imitation.

The costumes were in no taste at all. Many of the costumes appeared to be costumes for the sake of themselves and not really good costumes either. A performance by a musical star should be about the music. This show was not about the music. Great Musical talent was not demonstrated and a lot of the machinery looked simply ridicules and there was really no theme except gay is great. Why not advertise the Lady Gaga event as what it is. Monster Ball to me indicates an exposition of great talent. How about more accurately Stepfani sings the same song over and over in a great gay blowout. I am sure millions of people would have tuned in. I am tuned out.

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LIVE ROCK CRITIC SIX MAY 7th 2011 Ellie Gou...

LIVE ROCK CRITIC: LIVE ROCK CRITIC SIX MAY 7th 2011 Ellie Gou...: "LIVE ROCK CRITIC SIX Tina Fey Hosted Saturday Night Live with Ellie Goulding. Ellie Goulding has a very sweet voice but with a limited ..."

LIVE ROCK CRITIC SIX May 7th 2011 Ellie Goulding

LIVE ROCK CRITIC SIX

Tina Fey Hosted Saturday Night Live with Ellie Goulding.

Ellie Goulding has a very sweet voice but with a limited range. Her first song "Lights" moves right along, propelled by her unidentified bassist with a Musicman bass, a drummer and a keyboard. the first hit of oh oh came as light sped into the exciting part and I became aware of a background vocal. I looked all over and I began to think that the backgound vocal was Ellie again. The use of squencers is generally legitimate but there is a band on stage and I define

tly hear too much mucic and the vocal continues when Ellie is not singing along with herself. It seems as if she has actually lost her place in the sequence for this to occur. At the end of the first song the bobbling track bink bonk bink bonk bink bonk, keeps on going after everything else stops. The keyboard player is not moving. This could be deliberate but the overrun on the sequencer track is of the same length as the background vocal in Ellie's voice was.

I danced to lights as I did have to listen to it about eitht times over. It was a good dance, I guess this is the purpose of pop.

I had viewed and listened to the second tune first, an Elton John song. "Your song." which Ellie performed with two live backup singers a piano and strings. In a similar manner to Grace from the Nocturnals problems with the ooo ooh ooo ooooh, which I found lacked relevance and I was struck by the disparity with the lyrics. Somehow I do not get it, as I write, I hear only, and I her schmaltz. Similarily with Lady Gaga, who I will review next, my schmaltz alarms are going off. Am I missing some cachet? Is there something about those stereotypical nineteen fifties TV female vocals that I am not aware of that is cool?

As I tried to research the names of band members I ran into a review with the lyrics to "Lights" I think those lyrics are absolute garbage. I wonder why they were featured. I wonder if I am being too harsh, Ellie looks really nice, but whoever dressed her is no genius, as the review I noticed suggested. I thought she looked bulgy in the middle, and moved in somewhat of a wooden manner.

Once again researching, all kinds of awards, I am shocked. It appears that schmaltzy wooden and ordinary is just great everywhere, not just on Saturday Night Live.