Wednesday, August 14, 2013

The "Ice Ice Babies" of Wisdom

I love the internet, with its zillions of quotable quotes and pretty backgrounds and wacky fonts. So much which inspires us to respond with deep contemplation and reflection on our lives, loves and ethos.

Um.....This is a great quote. And who didn't appreciate the wisdom of Jack Kerouac? Ahead of his time. Gone too soon. A visionary pioneer.


That's not to say there haven't been tons of other wise, visionary, quotable ladies and gentlemen out there whose words have touched millions. 

Um....this is a great quote. Apple founder Steve Jobs was another brilliant man ahead of his time and gone too soon. 



Wait a second.

They can't arm wrestle over who actually said it, because they're both dead. I could sit here all day and find you hundreds of quotes attributed to Albert Einstein that he never actually uttered.

Hang on! You young folk might admire the (blech) brilliance of rapper Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem. You gotta understand that with rap music, 90% of it is "sampling," or utilizing pieces of already recorded songs/music in tandem with what is otherwise (supposed to be) an original production. (Read: IMHO, it's not terribly original.) Ask Keith Richards what HE thinks of sampling....I seem to recall when it started to boom in the 80's (don't quote me, whatever you do) that Richards said it was worse than having a song you wrote plagiarized; it was someone stealing your actual recorded lick.

(Which is why The Verve, when they stole the melody for "Bittersweet Symphony" had to pay The Rolling Stones boucoup bucks and give half the writing credit away because Jesus, they didn't even ask for copyright permission.)


Mathers must've channeled with the Ouija Board one night still strung out on Vicodin because the above quote is....well.....eerily similar to this old chap:


While we're at it, in conclusion, the most atrociously blatant rip off had to be Vanilla Ice trying to convince the world that "Ice Ice Baby" was his own original creation and that it bore zero resemblance to the Queen/David Bowie song "Under Pressure" because of a discrepancy, Ice said, in exactly one note of the melody. That's old news, but I *did* discover today a chilling, haunting, beautiful gem. 

This is the isolated vocal track of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie singing "Under Pressure." Two of rock's most unique, beautiful, mind-blowing vocalists together in one of my favorite duets EVER.

Enjoy. Perhaps you'll find it on this bootleg.




And no, nobody's yet stolen the Miklaszism of "The sausage has spoken!" but I'm keeping an eye out.

And PS, I'm willing to cut tremendous slack to The Flaming Lips for not realizing that "Fight Test" sounded *too* much like Cat Stevens' "Father & Son," and George Harrison? Love you long time, but yes, dear, "My Sweet Lord" WAS "He's So Fine." Understandable...you're like "WOW! YES! I got this great idea! TOTALLY!" so, you had to pay a bunch of dough. What confuses me about the Harrison copyright infringement lawsuit was how producer Phil Spector didn't catch the similarities in the melodies of the 2 songs while he was producing "My Sweet Lord." But he's kinda cuckoo.

6 comments:

Kate said...

Steve Jobs. One word not mentioned in that paragraph is "original". Why would you use that word if you were plagiarizing someone else's writing. Jobs isn't a genius,
He was in the right place at the right time and was one arrogant cozy dolan.
Andrea, did you know Enimen is my neighbor . No one has actually seen him but his orange tiled roof stands out on Long Island.
If Churchill is correct , I must be standing up for something everyday considering the number of enemies I have.
I love how you take all these separate thinkers and tie them all together. You make me think. Thank you.

The Offbeat Drummer said...

I find it both perversely entertaining and deeply disturbing that on the internet, anyway, EVERYONE quotes EVERYONE and attributes it to GOD KNOWS WHO. What *probably* happened in the instances of Kerouac/Jobs or Eminem/Churchill is that either of the latter men prefaced his statement with "As Blah Blah once said,..." but that part gets left out, or forgotten, or ignored, and thus the quote mill continues to churn and pretty soon Joan Rivers is Aristotle and God only knows what's going on.

Kerouac completely aside, Jobs was a smart marketer. "Let's make an iPod Touch. And an iPhone. Now let's make an iPad. Now let's make an iPad Mini, which is the same thing, essentially, as an iPod Touch, which is exactly like an iPhone, but doesn't make calls, er, unless you download this app, then really they're all the same device doing the same things but in different sizes costing variances of hundreds of dollars."

That's not original. That's a mindfuck.

I did *not* know Eminem was your neighbor. Doesn't Billy Joel live near you too?

Churchill was wise. And bipolar!

And the Queen bootleg CD cover at "Wenvley" Stadium bearing a picture of the Beatles and not Queen just about makes me pee myself. (That graphic courtesy of Robbie Rist, "Cousin Oliver" on "The Brady Bunch," a friend featured in our last blog of substance.)

But goddamnit, "The sausage has spoken!" is truly a Daniel Miklasz Sr original.

I think I'll start looking up conflicting quotes by Jesus in the Bible, which version of the Bible I'm not sure, which version of which story told by which apostle I haven't decided, edited by which Renaissance European and translated by the approval of what religious authority on which continent as yet undetermined. That oughta keep me out of trouble for a while.

:)

The Offbeat Drummer said...

I typo'd Eminem/Churchill in the "latter men" statement and transposed them. Pardon my error in the consistent point I was trying to make.

Anonymous said...

Regarding Phil Spector, agreed. His knowledge and expertise in pop/rock music, I suppose, should have broken down his "Wall of Sound" to recognize that "My Sweet Lord" was exactly the same melody as "He's So Fine." I'd never connected that before, so thanks for the earworm! Why don't you write to him in prison and see what he has to say?

The Offbeat Drummer said...

OMgolly, I would love to do a doctoral dissertation on the sociopath genius Spector. "Dissect the Spec."

The Offbeat Drummer said...

Just came across this article about that icky boy band One Direction plagiarizing The Who's "Baba O'Riley." Pete needs to windmill whomever writes the songs for those kids in the face with his guitar:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/one-direction-fans-bravely-vanquish-some-old-band,101691/