Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon

The sumo tournament in Osaka has reached the midway point, and as expected sole yokozuna Hakuho (7-0) has dominated. But two promising rikishi have also stepped up to take advantage of the opening created by yokozuna Asashoryu’s sudden retirement last month: ozeki Harumafuji, the former Ama and a disappointment since his promotion to ozeki a couple of years back, is now 7-0, as is sekiwake Baruto, who could win promotion to ozeki with a championship in this tournament. Baruto in particular has been impressive: he just looks much more serious about things this time around, his goofy grin a thing of the past. Down in the maegashira ranks, Tokitenku is also 7-0, but that’s just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

In the meanwhile, spring has arrived in Chicago (never mind those snowflakes falling outside the window as I write these words). I celebrate by listening to Minnesota Twins spring training games in the afternoon at my office. I’m pretty optimistic about the coming season, despite noises being made by local White Sox fans….

In the category, “It’s bloody well about time”: Universal betting on lower prices to boost CD sales.

Ray Davies continues to wow them on his current tour. MSN.com reports that “Ray Davies rules on second night of SXSW.”

The coming week should be a hectic one for me. I’m in Philadelphia on Monday and Tuesday for the NCC 3D conference, then up to Princeton for the “Rethinking ‘Hihyo’: Postwar Literary Criticism and Beyond” workshop, then back down to Philadelphia on Thursday for the 2010 AAS Annual Meeting.

I leave you with the late Alex Chilton. I saw him play with the reunited Big Star seven or eight years ago at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. It was a joyous occasion, especially when they covered The Kinks’ “‘Till the End of the Day.” Ray Davies dedicated that song to Chilton in his performance at SXSW this week (where Chilton had been scheduled to play) and spoke from the stage about how Chilton had visited him in the hospital after he was shot in New Orleans. A great songwriter and a wonderful voice: so long, Mr. Chilton.

It was a terrific show last night, powerful enough to sweep away any lingering mental and spiritual cobwebs. It was, in short, just what I needed. After a spirited opening set by LA band The 88, Ray took the stage with his accompanist, Bill Shanley, and opened with the wistful “This is Where I Belong.” He followed up immediately with the acoustic blues version of “You Really Got Me” that he developed for The Storyteller show, the number morphing halfway through into “I Need You,” and we were off and running. He asked the audience how they were feeling and then added, “Do you want to know how I’m feeling?,” whereupon he burst into song: “Well, baby, I feel good” (“‘Till The End of the Day”).

He played tunes from all stages of his career, including early (“Too Much on My Mind,” “Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy,” “Where Have All the Good Times Gone?,” “Sunny Afternoon,” “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” “See My Friends,” “Dedicated Follower of Fashion,” “Tired of Waiting”), mid (“Two Sisters,” “Victoria,” “Apeman,” “Twentieth Century Man”), late (“The Hard Way”) and solo (“In A Moment,” “The Tourist”). Highlights included two songs I’d never heard live before, “Nothin’ in This World (Can Stop Me Worryin’ ‘Bout That Girl)” and “Postcard from London.” The latter, released just a few months ago as a duet with Chrissie Hynde, worked remarkably well in the stripped down version Ray performed. We were also treated to Ray singing a verse of “A Well Respected Man” in his best Johnny Cash voice, as well as his imitations of David Letterman (so-so) and Paul Schaffer (pretty good), and a touch of an Irish folksong in honor of St. Patrick’s Day–Shanley played brilliantly on this and everything else through the evening. A high energy version of “All Day and All of the Night” closed the acoustic portion of the show.

Ray was in fine voice and seemed in good spirits throughout. For this Kinks’ fan, it’s been gratifying these past few years to see him relax and simply enjoy the respect and adulation he’s earned. The 88 returned to the stage to back Ray for a powerful final set that lit the joint on fire: “You Really Got Me” (reprised with heavy guitars and drums), “David Watts,” “Celluloid Heroes,” “Dead End Street,” “Low Budget,” and finally “Lola.” After playing most of the show from a sitting position, during the closing set Ray was jumping up and down and racing across the stage, looking nothing at all like a 65-year-old senior citizen.

The crowd was a typical Ray/Kinks mixture: young ‘uns in their twenties, gray hairs in their seventies (some literally with canes), and everything in between. I rode the Red Line El train home with a big grin on my face. For the umpteenth time, I’d participated in the big communal singalong on the chorus to “Lola”: that’s the closest thing there is to a religious ritual in my life.

Fan videos from the show:

On the dark side, tomorrow we take our first step into that gray new world known as post-Asashoryu sumo. Yokozuna Hakuho is the prohibitive favorite to take home the title in Osaka (has it really been a year since I was there in person for Day 8 last March, watching Asashoryu knock off Baruto in a fierce match?). Ozeki Kotooshu seems the only possible threat to Hakuho’s championship, and if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Kotooshu over the years, it’s that he shrinks like a banana souffle anytime he gets close to something good. Perhaps his recent marriage will change things, but my money’s on Hakuho (ho-hum: the subtle sound of a middle-aged man yawning).

Even darker, this is the week we learned the Minnesota Twins may have to live without relief ace, Joe Nathan. There are some viable replacement candidates already on the roster, including the marvelous Pat Neshek, back after an injury-related break of nearly two years, and Francisco Liriano has been tantalizingly good so far. But the loss of Nathan has Twins’ fans literally offering up parts of their own bodies in hopes of resuscitating Nathan’s pitching arm.

On the bright side, I’m taking Satoko to see Ray Davies in concert tonight at the Riviera. The last show we saw by him here in Chicago, a little more than a year ago, was transcendent, and reports from previous gigs on the current tour are quite positive. Here’s a little taste of what’s in store for me:

“Little Bird” by Eels (from their new CD, End Times) is one of the better break-up songs I’ve encountered lately.

I have tickets to see the one and only Ray Davies here in Chicago on Saturday night. Here’s one of the back-catalog songs he’s resuscitated for the current tour:

And here’s Delroy Wilson’s 1968 cover of the obscure Motown song, “Put Yourself in My Place” (apologies for the abrupt cut off at the end):

Ah, the sadness of pop songs. As Nick Hornby sums it up so admirably in High Fidelity, “Which came first, the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” Hell if I know, but Mr. Bartender can I please have change for this fiver so I can plug another handful of quarters into the jukebox?

Apologies for the radio silence around here lately. It’s been a wee bit busy on the South Side the past week or two. I’ll resume real blogging in short order, but in the meanwhile, here’s a clip I posted here a zillion years ago that’s well worth revisiting. It’s Kate Rusby’s cover of one of the very greatest of Kinks’ songs, “Village Green Preservation Society.” Nice slide show to go with it, too.

We are the Office Block Persecution Affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the Skyscraper condemnation Affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do?
God save the Village Green

Everyone is doing it these days, it seems. Yoko Ono has reunited the Plastic Ono Band. Minnesota punk-funk-rock legends The Suburbs got back together last weekend for a show in honor of their guitarist, Bruce Allen, who passed away late last year. Stew and Heidi, late of The Negro Problem and the musical Passing Strange, have a new show up this week that’s all about breaking up. Anzen Chitai, the kings of 1980s Japanese soft-rock, have likewise announced an upcoming reunion tour.

Everybody’s doing it, it seems….except of course for The Kinks. But at least now we have a new documentary feature film that explains, after a fashion, why that isn’t happening. Do It Again: One Man’s Quest to Reunite the Kinks had its world premiere last month at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Directed by Robert Patton-Spruill, the film follows the quixotic journey of Boston reporter Geoff Edgers, who is determined to bring Ray, Dave, Pete and Mick back together again. I haven’t seen it yet, but the film has been getting good reviews (e.g. here and here) and will be playing at a series of film festivals in the coming months (details available on the film’s website).

It must have been 1998 or thereabouts. Walter was 7 and Sonia was 2, and we were living in Los Angeles. One winter Sunday morning, we got up early and drove down to Anaheim, timing it so we arrived at Disneyland just as the park opened. The thought, of course, was to beat the crowds.

We rush in through the entrance gate and there is no one, I mean NO ONE, there. I tell the kids, quick, let’s jump onto as many rides we can before the long waiting lines form. I don’t care what rides: just anything, while there is no waiting. Without thinking, we rush into the Peter Pan attraction. It isn’t a good choice: we end up riding through the dark with mechanical pirates popping up and threatening to attack us. Sonia breaks down into hysterical wailing. Even big brother Walter is a little shaken up. Who would have thought a Peter Pan ride could be so intense?

After that, Sonia is leery of any rides. It takes a good deal of coaxing and persuading, but we get her to ride the spinning teacups, the flying Dumbos, and one or two others. And then I think: “It’s A Small World.” What could be safer?

By now the park is pretty crowded. We have to stand in line at “It’s A Small World” for maybe twenty, thirty minutes. All the while, I’m telling Sonia how much she’s going to like this one. Finally, we get into the little boat. We start moving forward through the channel, slow and gentle. Everything’s fine. But then we enter into a dark room. Sonia tenses up. Next we turn the corner and are suddenly surrounded on all sides by hundreds of little horrific dolls, all singing in diabolic voices, “It’s a small word after all…,” all of them swiveling in this robotic jerky back-and-forth movement. Sonia screams in terror for the rest of the ride, completely inconsolable.

I’ve learned this week that Sonia isn’t the only one to get freaked out about “It’s A Small World.” Greg Kot in the Chicago Tribune interviewed rising UK singer Ebony Bones this week. He asks about her striking look, and she describes her style as being like “a dark Disney ride.” Kot pursues this issue further:

Did she ever experience a dark Disney ride?

“Absolutely! My parents took me when I was 9 and it was vile. I hated it. The ‘It’s a Small World’ ride terrified me: All these kids from strange countries staring at me. I wanted to jump off the ride.”

I don’t know if St. Vincent had any bad Disney experiences while growing up. She seems pretty well adjusted. Anyhow, I really like what she does to the Beatles’ “Dig a Pony.”

According to the BBC, they fine you there if you lip-synch in concert. Besides, according to the article, you need a license to be a pop singer in China. It’s hopeless for me.

I’ve been a big fan of musician Stew for more than a decade, since I first stumbled across his band The Negro Problem back in the late 1990s. He takes the sound of 1960s sophisticated California pop (think Arthur Lee and Love or Jimmy Webb) and updates it with lyrics that shimmer with wit, intelligence, and poetry. Throw in a remarkable gift for composing haunting melodies and you have a singer-songwriter who I think is a living national treasure. The best gift I ever gave Satoko was for Valentine’s Day 2006, when I was able to get Stew to record a personalized song for her commemorating the holiday. Satoko said it almost made up for all the other crummy presents I’d given her over the years.

So I was delighted when Stew’s musical, Passing Strange, won him some much deserved attention, including a Tony Award for its 2008 Broadway engagement. I thought about flying out to New York to see the show during its two runs there, but never made it. I did snap up the original cast recording CD when it was issued and fell in love with many of the songs on it.

In the end, though, I never saw the show live. Last night, I got to see Spike Lee’s film version, which records the final Broadway performance at the Belasco Theater. I was prepared to like this film, needless to say. But I wasn’t fully prepared for how powerful the experience was. It had me in tears more than once–that is, when I wasn’t laughing or tapping my foot in time to the music.

It’s a Portrait-of-the-Artist-as-a-Young-Man narrative combined with an electrifying rock show: Stew, his longtime collaborator Heidi Rodewald, and band are on stage the whole time, frequently interacting with the actors. The cast is astonishingly good. Many of the players take up multiple roles during the course of the evening, and it is sheer pleasure to watch them inhabit the bodies of radically different sorts of characters. Through it all, Stew serves as the avuncular narrator, stepping up to centerstage whenever the need arises for a rock-and-roll explosion. Spike Lee’s direction is lean but creative: he even gets a cast member to carry a video camera on stage to film one sequence (watch the Special Features section on the DVD for more about this).

I can only guess how much more powerful the show must have been live. It’s difficult to imagine another cast ever taking it on, so probably this filmed version is the best I’ll get. I hate to set you up with excessive expectations that no movie could ever satisfy; undoubtedly, the best way to encounter this would be to stumble across it unexpectedly and be blown away. But I’d hate for anyone to miss this one: do yourself a favor and watch the thing. It’s a work of art, and to paraphrase Stew, life is full of mistakes, but art is where we go to correct them.

The gloom of winter: this morning, the radio newscaster announced that the wind chill factor outside was “4 below” and then, not five minutes later, amended that to “6 below.” Yikes. But things got a little more warm and cheery in Chicago yesterday, because we learned that Ray Davies is on his way: a new March U.S. tour was announced. It includes a March 13 gig here at the Riviera. The full tour schedule is available here.

On top of that, “Postcard from London,” Ray’s new duet with Chrissie Hynde, was officially released in the U.S. yesterday. You can download it at Amazon.com or at I-Tunes.

So I’m in a pretty good state of mind. And I’ve shut the radio off, because I don’t want to hear what the newscaster will say next.