The Meatcutters Dance: What That Racket Were, Weren't It?: Show #3

Great Yipples of Kipple! As feared, we're back again with the low-downs on the hoe-downs you had to endure as part of your commitments towards getting through Show Number 3.

Bit of a heavy leaning to the comedic side of matters this time around. We'll have to redress such imbalance; expect a hearty dose of the more miserable side of buggerism for the next few.

For now, to kick up the fit of giggles, precocious child wazzock (aw, come along, she’s a sweetie really), Ginny Tiu, accompanied by favver on the keys as she entertains gathered family friends around the jo-annie. Inka Dinka Doo, don’t be cruel, smile, clap along, encourage, encourage. She grew up just fine.

Back in show number 2 we doused youse with a hot muckjet of Shizuko Kasagi, and you had your socks charmed off, remember? Here she is again, off browsing round the market with the outrageous Kaimono Boogie (1950). For you newbies, JapanNewbie has all the low-down on this particular dish, so go there so we don’t have to repeat.

Have some of this though. Full lyrics writ out and translated so you can sing along:

Shopping boogie-woogie

Today, from the morning, it's been so hectic in my house.
Bon festival and the new year came together, bustle of busyness...
What is what - I don't know at all
Which is which - I don't know at all
Without hearing anything, I just jumped up!
But "What to buy? Where to buy?" - things were just jumbled up
I really can't tell at all
I really can't tell at all
I really can't tell at all!

Occasional Sunday, even though it's a Sunday, what is "fate" - being requested to buy these many things, without considering a person's (my) trouble.
Just random, things that already have, things that don't.
Without even knowing a person's feelings,
I really can't tell at all
I really can't tell at all!

In any case, the first place to go is the fish shop.
"Sea brim, flounder, bonito, tuna, yellowtail, mackerel, they're all first-class fish - buy them!"
Ossan, I don't think it matters (what I buy).
They're only delicious when being made into sashimi!
I really can't tell at all
I really can't tell at all!

Cockle, ark shell, octopus, squid, prawn, eel, garfish, squilla... seasoned with wasabi to make sushi.
Just how delicious is that?
Just how delicious is that?
"Customer, are you going to buy anything?"
Right right, I'm buying fish.
Ossan, do you have canned salmon?
I really can't tell at all (Idiot!)

Right next to the fish shop is the greengrocer shop.
Carrots, white radish, burdock, lotus root, Popeye's favorite spinach,
tomato, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, cucumber, melon cucumber, dull-colored eggplant, pumpkin...
Tokyo negi negi boogie woogie..

Button, ribbon and ponkan orange,
match, cider, tobacco, JINTAN...
It's so complicated! Complicated! Complicated! Complicated! Ah~ Complicated!

Excuse me, ossan, hello
Excuse me, ossan, how much is this?
Ossan, are you here? How much is this?
Ossan ossan! How much is this?!
Ossan how much? How much is this ossan!
Ossan ossan ossan ossan
Ossan ossan ossan ossan
Ossan ossan ossan ossan
He has hearing difficulty, he can't hear!
I really can't tell at all
I really can't tell at all!
Ahh~ I'm exhausted!

If you’re not dancing round the hut in a joyful rut by the time the first lot of handclaps come in, then what on earth are you doing here? Geyaheyouyahee!

But oy oy - let us not get too bogged down in Oriental waters, we're rationing it for next month (more on that later).

For those still in the game, let’s keep it English and pie-faced, with an outing from the usually-cack Leslie Sarony, with what can only be called 'Don't Do That To The Poor Puss Cat' (1928) (“humorous – in English with orch.”) Balls to your Billy Murray version, (but it’s here if you fancy a dabble – it does have added meowing.)

Hey now Chub-munch, feeling a touch portly after your chrissymissy bingeing are we? To whip you up into a fitness fervour, here, some encouraging words from Fred Douglas to extol the virtues of a simple controlled calorie intake discipline negating the need for fancy oily-snake weight-sapping herbal remedies tugboated from untaxed and unwashed peninsulas, that only a fool would fall for. Pantry door? Off limits til the midwint’ snow melts its last.

Just remember, young porkers: each one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year. Now, back to licking coal by way of supper, as is proper.

Just hopping by the window to pop a chortle at your spousal expense, Furry Lewis is cruising for bruising, purring “Good Looking Girl Blues”(1927) through your kitchen, just, you know, stoking his hoot. The joke will be on him, not spotting your wifey’s broom swinging into action up behind. That peg leg’ll be pegging where no sun shines before the second verse. Don’t squirm, Furry – she’s not good looking, but she takes her time.

Bring the girls in from the coal shed to drown out the squawks: You’ll do, Maria d'Egidio -with the helpfully titled “Vintage Song” from the helpfully titled Italian Folk Songs compilation of Italian Folk Songs.

JUNGLE TIME, you slippery city slickers! This has all been terrible cosy and slipper-ific so far, so let’s get you in the trees and brambles and see what comes crawling up your knickers. A facefull of fruitbat is the least of your troubles, it’s Zulu Wail (1928) by The Devillers (that’s right, no puffy Ted Wallace big band version here, just the full-blooded take on matters). And yes, since you ask, that IS Tom Foy in the undergrown background, lost on his way to ‘alifax.

OH GOD WHATEVER NEXT, well, it’s of no harm, it’s simply “Vahine Anamite” by Charles Mauu of course, machete-ing through the undermuff right at you.

Lyric time again: If you don’t sing along, it’s an insult to their custom or something:

e ahahahe uh ah uh hi ah

Ie ahahaaaaahe uh ah a hia hi ah

Chorus:

O o oe te vahine anamite

Noho noho i te pae poroumu e

Tatarahia mai ra

Poromu a viri e

Mate mate ua hope

Te hina aro te hina aro

Tamure tamure tamure tanana

Puhiti erere

Tamai e tupe

Tupere tupere e ta io tamure

Drop the uke and follow the bongos, through to a clearing in the bushies, here’s a queer sight right enough: Ronald Frankau entertaining the gathered visitors, coconut-chebbed locals and tat vendors with the sensitive, considered and heartfelt pledge of "I'd Rather Be A Savage". WHO COULD ARGUE. FEW COULD ARGUE.

Some fingerer-ed blurb:

“...an English comedian and musician from London who started in cabarets and made his way to old-time radio and movies. In 1925 he started broadcasting saucy jokes on the radio in an Etonian tone for the BBC, but is actually better known these days for what he was never allowed to broadcast. Frankau recorded a number of songs and skits on Parlophone, some of which, like Winnie the Worm and Everyone’s Got Sex Appeal For Someone, were banned altogether. Despite, or because of, this flavour in his songs, Frankau sold over 100000 records in 1932. Like most comedians, he often commented on the current events at the time, often in satire. Some of the songs he recorded regarding current events (the war, at that time) were ”Heil Hitler! Ja! Ja! Ja!” and ”The Navy The Army and The Police”. Despite his dangerously naughty tones off the air, he was able to keep his jokes clean enough for some of the toughest censors of British broadcasting at the time, including Baron Reith. In 1934 Frankau began a comedy duo with Tommy Handley that they called ‘Murgatroyd and Winterbottom’.”

t'Has to be said – the old chap’s sounding for all the world like a man who's not aware he's about to be plopped into a steaming pot with apple in mouth, peppered. Bagsy next with hand-cranking the spit!

Back to civilisation now, and you’ll soon wish otherwise: Youth has spiralled out of control, discipline and respect of elders has all gone all to cocked pot, and Little Bast’rds marble the streets like they’ll own them. Here they are coaxing all kinds of gran’mama-bothering cacophonations out of pots, pans and penny flutes with naught so much as a grade-1 understanding of the simplest of treble clefs with a non-bearable ruination of "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze". Heavens to Betsy!!!

Top tip to potential snipers is to take out Spanky; without their leader they’ll scuttle. Either that, or wait till they’re not marketable as cute any more and let them hoy themselves down various assorted ether-based pathways of self destructions and bare-knuckle cockfight warm-up showcases. Haw, you see, us grown-ups will always win in the end. Speaking of that, we’ll wager a half-penny on the greased-up porky lad.

Hey, they don’t get more grown-up, dignified, and refined than good man Bobbie Comber, getting nautical here playing his ukulele as the ship goes down. Like all the best shanties, this also works as an inescapable metaphor for those of us whose lives are being slowly flushed, spiralling, down a deep, dank, slarted why-bend of mank. Glug--Ahoy--Glug, my hearties. Glug--Ahoy--Glug.

This soggy tripe continues on side B. Flip it if you want to flip it, we’ll meet you later, for it’s BEER O CLOCK. Gus Elen’s getting the brekkie-time round in, mine’s a double Duvel, barkeep. Slide Gus his ‘arf tankard, the big girl’s blouse.

If we weren’t all such a ragtag of despicable worthless barlice perched all along this service hatch every hour of night, day and dusk, we could have shiny dickie clips and buckles and be out there in the DAY LIGHT (it burns) being chivaleriousious and respectful in fair maiden’s faces, much like Ratibah Ahmed, here tackling the thorny issue “Never, Never, Mr. Ticket Inspector, Do Not Take From This Lady The Ticket's Fee”. Seeing as Zakariyyah Ahmed is the maiden in question, this qualifies for the WOMEN OF EGYPT 1924-1931: PIONEERS OF STARDOM AND FAME collection.

Via the Holy Warbles blog:

“In 1932 Egyptian music had reached a perceived identity crisis so severe that King Fu'ad convened the Conference on Arab Music with a specific agenda to address the imminent extinction of traditional Arab music. In no small part, the lack of a clear, single identity is thanks to the parade of awkward, scandalous, wilful, fiercely entrepreneurial women whose voices are heard on this series of lively recordings. Listen to Raqs Badia'ah played by the Badia'ah Masabni Orchestra and you hear the sound of the small ensemble that provided the musical entertainment at Cairo's most progressive nightclub. The finger cymbals are played by Badia'ah herself, a glamorous dancer as well as singer, and the businesswoman who introduced to Cairo not just the western charleston, but also popularised the raqs sharki or bellydance as a cabaret entertainment. This valuable collection from the British Library Sound Archive charts the transition from traditional classical entertainment to the newer styles, influenced by visiting foreign stars such as Mistinguette and the rise of cabaret. The period of these recordings was a boom time with theatres and nightspots mushrooming in Cairo and rival record companies scrambling to tie up top performers to exclusive contracts. As the thirties went on, the irresistible rise of Oum Kalthoum took hold, and this pioneering period of diverse performers, at the meeting point of scandal and respectability, where fortunes were won and lost, came to a respectable close. The future of Arabic music was safe again, if a fraction less anarchically exciting.”

Bit humid out there? Well, off you gans for a refreshing dip in a Finnish geyser with skimpily-towelled lothario Tony Risikko, “Mörri-Möykyn Kolossa” this, another snip from the filthifier of childhood innocence that is the Mörrimöykyn suvi audio soundbook storybook nightmare book record. Oh, go on back to your Moomins if you can’t hack it!

TOOT TOOT in my swinging old grey car. Texas Kitty is here. Everybody shouts “hey”. Toot, Toot. This is the first recorded instance of a lady ever taking to the byway at the unassisted control of a petrolated ve-hicle, and it all seems to be going quite all right so far. TAKE YOUR HANDS AWAY FROM OFFA YOUR EYES, IT IS!

Like a silly-ass but freshly lipsticked mare veering through a hedge due to inappropriate wing mirror usage, we’re ducking down a quick detour before the final flourish: “Smryneiko Minore” (1919, New York via Greece) by Marika Papagika, probably recorded in the immigration holding pit, looking out on the Liberty Statue being hoisted into place, infants knifing each other for crust. It were alllll worth it. Allllll worth it, and here, it’s on Black Mirror: Reflections in Global Music 1918-1955.

Let’s round off happy; I'll See You In My Dreams (1936) crooned and crooned and swooned by Val Rosing. Sweetie, sweetie dreams. Pity about that teddy bear’s picnic being massacred by an out of control tooting old grey car mind. Jam everywhere, and pudding, and stuffing!

You’re correct in thinking this may all sound right like the kind of song we'd be signing off with on our very final show, were we to scuttle the whole endeavour due to wildly haemorrhaging listeners, waned interest and baned bait, but no such luck for you. Pack yourself into your kimono - We'll be back in February with a clutch purse packed with ying tong songs for our Far East Special!

Had a good time, sir? Why not show your appreciation and purchase one of these fer yer good m’lady, m’guv’ner?

Monday, 17 January 2011

What That Racket Were, Weren't It?: Show #3

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