Segarini: The 2015 Milli Vanilli’s…I mean, Grammys.

I don’t know where to begin….

AC/DC playing first so they could go home and take a nap?

He Who Cannot Be Named?

Boy George winning 4 Grammys with a Tom Petty song?

He Who Cannot Be Named?

I need a drink….

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After this year’s Grammys I am totally out of WTFs. Used ‘em all. All gone. No more WTFs…I’m going to have to either buy some more WTFs, or find another way to express disbelief and utter frustration.

Maybe I will practice levitating about a foot off the ground, having my eyebrows leave my face, or just sprout a Felix the Cat question mark over my head. Honestly….what the fuck?

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He Who Cannot Be Named’s Talent Must Be Hypnosis….

No one is safe from the Kool Aid of Odd Decisions. Is this even true?

Taylor Swift and He Who Cannot Be Named – Billboard Magazine

During his first proper interview since momentarily interrupting Beck’s Grammys speech on Sunday night (Feb. 8), He Who Cannot Be Named confirmed during Ryan Seacrest’s syndicated radio show that he and Swift will be “going into the studio together,” according to the official On Air with Ryan Seacrest Twitter feed. He Who Cannot Be Named and Swift have long expressed admiration for each other’s work, and were photographed together at the Grammy awards.

Also during the interview, He Who Cannot Be Named clarified his comments following the Grammys, in which he supposedly questioned Beck’s artistry after Morning Phase upset Beyonce’s self-titled full-length for the album of the year prize. “Beck is one of the nicest guys and one of the most respected musicians in the game,” said He Who Cannot Be Named. “When I said that thing about respect artistry, I think it came off the wrong way and that was a mis-wording on my part. … Obviously Beck is one of the most respected artists, and respects artistry.”

And He Who Cannot Be Named explained why he rushed the stage when Beck’s album was announced as the album of the year winner: “The voices in my head told me to go up.” Sometimes, apparently, the voices in He Who Cannot Be Named’s head can simply be too demanding.

Let’s hope those voices aren’t Berkowitz’s dog….

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Madonna Joins The League of Extraordinary Rear Ends

How to turn the Red Carpet into The Walk of Shame

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Explaining John Legend

Do you remember that scene in Animal House when Stephen Bishop is singing on the stairs at the Toga party and Belushi takes the guitar out of his hands and smashes it to pieces?

When John Legend started up with yet another maudlin ballad worthy of a 4 minute nap, I imagined Belushi doing the same to the grand piano.

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The Duets or Stop Yelling at Me!

Geezers and Teasers

Tom Jones and Jessie J

Out of all the geezers on display, Mr. Jones still brings it…but what he brings isn’t really my cup of tea. Never has been. I will always, however, love him for his turn in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks, and his loudly posed question, What’s New Pussycat?, because I always giggled when he sang “Pussy”. Damned if I know why.

Aside from being the foundation and template for David Clayton Thomas’s similar warble, Jones is the consummate sex symbol for grey-haired ladies, ironic Hipsters, and girls with Daddy Issues. He wears the mantle well and can still reach the cheap seats with a voice that can be heard over an air raid siren. He and his partner in crime, Jessie J, (another Brit whose voice could wither the hardest erection), turned Phil Spector, Barry Mann, and Cynthia Weil’s You Lost That Loving Feeling into a shouting match equaled only by drunk bridesmaids at a Karaoke Bar. The disconnect between their ham-fisted approach to the song and the lyrics was so severe, all I could imagine were two people who hated one another being forced at gunpoint to sing about how much they loved one another.

In a perfect world, they would have wrestled Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better from Annie Get Your Gun to the ground by changing the lyric to Anything You Can Sing I Can Sing Louder. That would have been more befitting the moment.

Tony Bennett and Lady Ga-Ga

Like Paul McCartney, Bennett has become one of the greats you wheel out after dinner and sing a duet with to impress your friends and A: Give yourself some much needed credibility, and B: Prove you are capable of more than a bad fashion statement and appeal to more than disenfranchised young people who are one disappointment away from pulling the wings off of flies or tossing a sack full of kittens off a bridge into a river.

Lady Ga-Ga (the hyphen is mine) wisely started taking singing lessons after mangling Someone to Watch Over Me on the Today Show several years ago, and has started to dress less like a drag queen and more like a Cruise Ship chanteuse while she chases after Rod Stewart’s shift from Rock Icon to Lounge Singer. Nice tits, though.

Seriously, snap out of it, people.

He Who Cannot Be Named, Rihanna, and an Old Icon with a Prop Mic and Unplugged Guitar.

While supposedly a threesome, this was clearly a duet with a stage prop, in this case a well-loved pop culture icon who could have easily been replaced by a potted Ficus with his picture stapled to it.

I do not remember one note or word of whatever was being sung, because I was perplexed by something that distracted me from even caring about the music. I am, by now, familiar with He Who Cannot Be Named’s famous stage moves, which consist of him keeping his head down, a crab-like scuttle to and fro, and the crotch grab and pants pull stolen from Michael Jackson and used to distract us from whatever else he is doing onstage. …or maybe he is just checking to see if his junk is still there instead of in Beyonce’s Spanx drawer. How Kimmers tolerates his obsession with Beyonce is beyond me, but who knows…maybe there’s some sort of hanky or panky going on there.

Anyway, he and Rihanna appeared to be singing (their mouths were opening and closing and I don’t think they were having snacks) but, like He Who Cannot Be Named, she too was clutching at her crotch with wild abandon.

As far as I know, Rihanna does not have junk to check, so I’m thinking maybe she has some sort of genital itch that unfortunately chose that moment to flare up. Like a trooper, she didn’t seem embarrassed or bothered by it at all. A consummate pro….

Meanwhile…

Paul McCartney

I am beginning to think there is a conspiracy afoot when it comes to the Not-So-Cute-Anymore-Beatle. Paul, looking more and more like beloved cartoon character Droopy Dog, has had one slap after another landed on his still-kind-of-adorable cheeks.

Last year, being used by David Grohl for credibility/career advancement, and paired with Ringo Starr to celebrate the Beatles by doing two totally unrelated non-Beatle songs instead of being paired with Dani Harrison and Julian Lennon for a tune or two to celebrate the One-Of-Many Beatle anniversary, (which could have easily been pre-recorded for the show), a missed opportunity so frustrating to me, that my supply of WTFs was diminished by half.

Then this year, again at the hands of the Grammy organization, he suffered more blows to the head.

Dancing Paul

All over the media, it is assumed that McCartney stood up and was dancing to ELO of his own volition and told to sit down by a cameraman because…well…there is no because. Let me explain what happened… No one else was standing up. That means that the cameraman asked or directed him to stand up and dance. What we saw on TV was orchestrated by the booth, just like most of what made it to air. After they got the shot they wanted, we got to see the cameraman tell McCartney to return to his seat, which he did, consummate professional that he is, and now we all think he embarrassed himself.

Nope.

He didn’t.

He was just doing what he was told, or asked, to do.

Another Great Opportunity Lost

Instead of replacing a potted plant for Rihanna and He Who Cannot Be Named, Paul (may I call him Paul?) did belong on stage at one point during the evening. That moment was so insanely obvious, that the few WTFs I had left at this point were decimated beyond repair. The very idea that no one connected with producing/running.ruining this dog and pony show didn’t put two and two together and have a lightbulb go off over their head(s) will haunt me until the Grammy Short Bus conceived Stevie Wonder Tribute next Sunday when equally stupid mistakes will be made.

Jeff Lynne, a Beatle Fan without peer, his entire career based on the work of Mr. McCartney and Company, every song he has written a tribute to them in some way, and the producer of what I consider to be the greatest Beatle record ever recorded that neatly and beautifully summed up their entire run as the Greatest Band Ever,..was saddled with babysitting Ed Sheeran, a likeable young fellow with McCartney’s vocal range and a decent tilt to his head…which would have been just fine…HAD MCCARTNEY ALSO BEEN ONSTAGE SINGING AND PLAYING ALONG AND TAKING MR. BLUE SKY INTO A MEDLEY OF BEATLE TUNES THAT WOULD HAVE MADE JEFF LYNNE LIGHT UP LIKE A FUCKING CHRISTMAS TREE AND MADE FUCKING SENSE! WTF!!!?

I apologize for screaming at you…hope I didn’t get any spit on your shirt.

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Barry Gibb and Max Martin

One wrote great songs that often became hits. The other one writes hits that are occasionally songs.

There is a difference….

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Circus Parade, Sermon, Carnival, Church, Freakshow, Pentecostal Evangelist Healing and Holy Rolling….

At the beginning of this (occasionally) Talent Show, I started to worry that LL J (who seems to have lost his ‘Cool’ somewhere between Deep Blue Sea and last year’s Grammys) was going to start shilling ShamWows between every act. I was thrilled that he stuck with just shilling the acts. By the time this interminable slog came to its long awaited conclusion, I momentarily wondered if I should genuflect and cross myself when I got off the couch to pour a drink and calm my nerves. I did not feel entertained. I felt like I had almost been converted to a faith not of my choosing.

I felt like my parents had loaded me into the car with a promise of going to Disneyland, and ended up at the dentist’s office having all my teeth pulled by an alcoholic dentist with the shakes, and bad breath.

First I was dazzled by one of the most nostalgic bands still capable of feeding themselves, who played a new song just like the old song, then played an old song just like the new song, and repaired to their dressing room and changed from the schoolboy outfit and roadie costumes, put on their jammies and track suits, and shuffled off to the van to get back to the hotel in time for the Matlock Marathon. Then I was lulled into a fog of trust, furthered by the appearance of the lovely, unobtainable Taylor Swift, and then just as quickly, the waterboarding began and I found myself once again being told that War is Peace, Mediocre is Great, and ballads are Important.

What a load of Poop.

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A Few Questions….

Is Hozier the American spelling of ‘Hoser’?

Does Madonna use Ben Gay or A535 for the muscle pain after she performs?

Was that swarm of dancers Madonna was attacked by supposed to be bulls? They honestly looked like cockroaches.

Is there one barber in L.A who supplies that perfectly trimmed 5 o’clock shadow look so many of the youngsters sport that makes them look like they may have sexual orientation issues?

Were those Pharrwll dancers dressed like ATM hold up artists, or were they ATM hold up artists who can also dance?

Was he Who Cannot Be Named singing to his mother, God, or Marvin Gaye? Couldn’t understand a word he said…er…sang…nah…said.

Is it just me or did Weeknd sound like a little girl and why was his hair frightened?

What was Pharrell dressed like? An Organ Grinder’s monkey, a Bell Boy, the “Call for Phillip Morris” kid, or is he just a Wes Anderson fan? Why was his lady friend encased in a skintight grey astronaut’s long johns?

Even though he won an award, did Richard Perry smell something bad, or was he about to change into a werewolf?

Why did Prince dress up like a can of Orange Crush? Is it Halloween in Hollywood?

Who were half those people? Did a lot of the executives who make their money from the dancing singers bring their kids because they couldn’t get sitters?

Shia LeBeuf? Why?

Shouldn’t Josh Duhamel have stayed home with Fergie instead of taking two football players to the Grammys? Was she home…alone…crying?

Why didn’t Rihanna do the “Violence against Women is Bad” speech? Why isn’t Chris Brown in jail? Only in America would they think it necessary to explain this to people along with “Black Lives Matter”, and “Don’t Use a Gun to Kill People or Clean Your Ears”. Don’t we all know these things already? Shouldn’t we?

Why do some of these people thank God for their little Gramophones? If God exists, you KNOW one of the first things he’s going to do when he finally gets tired of our bullshit is drop kick L.A into the Pacific.

Unrelated Question: Do you pronounce Ra’s al Ghul “RACHE (RAYsh) or ROCHE (RAWsh)?

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The Winners

Well, who cares? We’ll forget who they were before the next award show. The biggest winners in the room were all those older men in the front rows with the artists. They make the money…well…they don’t make the money…they just keep most of it.

The Losers

That’s easy….

Us.

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“Well, Bob, don’t be a dick. Haters gotta hate, but you aren’t a Hater, are you? Bob? You Douche…”

Dwight Yoakam and Brandy Clark

A wonderful song, sung by two people with sincerity and genuine talent and played on two beautiful acoustic guitars without one dancer, rear end, or flashpot. Yoakam also sported one killer hat. Note to Pharrell – Now THAT”S a hat.

Juanes

Real band, real song, real good. Actually played and sang, jeans and a nice shirt, the real thing and the most refreshing moment in the whole 72 hour show.

Well, it FELT like 72 hours…..

ELO

I’m not even a fan of the band, but I have to admit they did a great job on their two tunes. I just wish McCartney would have been up there with them. I wouldn’t feel so bad for him if he would have been.

Annie Lennox

Why was everyone surprised she still has the chops and the style? Looking like everyone’s favourite lesbian aunt, whether she is or not is unimportant. What Is important was that she segued out of that mediocre Hoser song into a Screaming Jay Hawkins classic and made the band seem almost good. Keep on keepin’ on Annie…nice to see you without Dave Stewart sulking in the background.

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The New Freaky for Freaky’s Sake

Well, say goodbye to Laurie Anderson, Lorde, Grace Jones, Yoko Ono, and Bjork, and say hello to the erstwhile, knows-exactly-what-she’s-doing calculatedly and pretentiously weird and off-centre, Sia. Aided and abetted by the equally odd and smugly funny (but oh so serious here) Kirsten Wiig and another “performance artist” named Maddie Ziegler, Sia proved that the public cannot get enough silliness and goofball artistry when it comes to swallowing the kool-Aid of hip trend setters. Sia also proves what I have always believed; Art Is Whatever You Can Get Away With.

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Beck

 

The most telling moment of the night occurred right after Beck won Album of the Year. He was joined onstage by a cadre of older men who beamed with pride that their horse had won the derby, and were already planning what to do with the money when the sales spike took place over the next week or so.

Immediately after they began to walk off stage, the booth switched to a camera backstage where a tall woman who introduced herself as the Queen of the Grammys social media branch and told us all to tweet, facebook, imgur, and what-all and hashtag this, that and the other. She was smiling like she had hooks in the corners of her mouth and was so happy to be there, I thought she would pee herself.

While she was chirping away, behind her the parade of people who were leaving the stage appeared. Prince, the hostess/seeing-eye model, and the older men walked into frame. Prince, the model, and a paparazzo continued past the camera, but the men stood in the background smiling, laughing, and glad-handing one another…then Beck walked into view carrying his little Grammy., not smiling, or anything, just walking through the men who had been onstage with him just a minute ago. He walked through them straight ahead. The men didn’t look at him or acknowledge him in any way. No high fives, back slaps, or beaming looks. Nothing.

Like he was a ghost.

Which, to them, he probably is.

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From Wikipedia…. Milli Vanilli was an R&B, pop, and dance music project created by Frank Farian in Munich, West Germany, in 1988. The group was formed with Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The group’s debut album Girl You Know It’s True achieved international success and earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on February 21, 1990. Milli Vanilli became one of the most popular pop acts in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their success turned to infamy when the Grammy award was withdrawn after Los Angeles Times author Chuck Philips revealed that lead vocals on the record were not the voices of Morvan and Pilatus. They recorded a comeback album in 1998, but Rob Pilatus died before the album was released

The first public sign that the group was lip-synching came on July 21, 1989 during a live performance on MTV at the Lake Compounce theme park in Bristol, Connecticut. As they performed onstage live in front of an audience, the recording of the song “Girl You Know It’s True” played and began to skip, repeating the partial line “Girl, you know it’s…” over and over on the speakers. They continued to pretend to sing and dance onstage for a few more moments, then they both ran offstage. According to the episode of VH1’s Behind the Music which profiled Milli Vanilli, Downtown Julie Brown stated that fans attending the concert seemed neither to care nor even to notice, and the concert continued as if nothing unusual had happened. In a March 1990 issue of Time magazine,

As a result of American media pressure, Milli Vanilli’s Grammy was withdrawn four days later. However, their three American Music Awards were never withdrawn because the organizers felt the awards were given to them by music consumers.

So it seems, once again, that nothing has changed. The public obviously doesn’t give a horse’s patootie if an artist it likes (for whatever reason), lip-syncs, or autotunes, or buries their voices under lots of effects and background singers, or doesn’t play their own instruments, or write their own songs. The only difference now, is that neither does the media, or The Grammys.

If they did…there would be a hell of a lot of Grammys to get back.

I guess they figure it’s just not worth the effort these days.

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Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, continues to write music, make music, and record.