Brandon's Buzz

Blake Shelton & Trace Adkins — “Hillbilly Bone”
(from Loaded: The Best of Blake Shelton) —

So, that big ol’ barbecue feast that was originally supposed to take place the weekend before last got delayed until last Friday night, but rest assured: the brisket was lean and juicy, the turkey was fabulously moist, and both A’s and my hillbilly bones were tickled but good by our rather rare smoked meat throwdown, which was well worth the wait. (PS: No peacocks were harmed in the creation of this blog post.)

The Airborne Toxic Event — “This is London”
(from Such Hot Blood) —

Dialing way back on the overblown percussion and ersatz edginess that liberally littered their massively disappointing second record, Mikel Jollett and his band are back on track big time with a terrific third effort, which is anchored by this ethereal, string-drenched gem, a quietly haunting (if slightly melodramatic) tale of love, lost youth and pub-stumbling chaos across the pond.

Katy Perry — “Peacock”
(from Teenage Dream [The Complete Confection]) —

True story: on my way home from work Sunday night, I stopped by our favorite local BBQ joint to pick up several heartstopping pounds of various classes of meat (and a quart of cole slaw and a loaf of bread, just to even out the prospective plates to be created from this meal). I did this because, earlier that day, A had put the notion in my head that this should be our dinner, and he is such a ginormous carnophobe — quite literally, he says endearingly wacky things like “I’ve only had three salads this week!” on a regular basis — and he of course had the great fortune of setting up house with a native Texas boy who wholeheartedly believes “hamburger” is one of the four main food groups (and who, natch, believes that lettuce is meant to be nothing more than a crisp, pretty garnish for said hamburger), so whenever he suggests a meal that in any way involves beef, I tend to leap at the chance.

It being the evening of Mother’s Day in the heart of the Lone Star State, I clearly should have been able to predict that the joint would be a mob scene. And indeed, when I stepped inside, I immediately caught sight of a line of folks easily numbering eighty to one hundred, all of them waiting patiently to be fed. I put myself at the back of the line for the moment, but it quickly became clear, after standing there for five full minutes and not moving a centimeter, that no barbecue would land on my plate that night.

Dejected, I headed back out into the parking lot and toward my truck, where I immediately caught sight of a whole new bizarro quandary: while I had been inside sorting out my dinner options, completely out of left field, a living breathing peacock — I swear to Jesus this is the truth! — had emerged and was standing directly before my pickup sniffing my passenger side headlight. It wasn’t difficult to foresee the dilemma awaiting me, as there was a young, goofy couple — each of them clutching their smartphones like they were out to win a prize — standing behind the beast and repeatedly snapping pictures.

I slipped around the cars that were parked next to my truck and came around the side in order to enter my vehicle, praying that I could get inside without being attacked by the damn bird, all the while hoping that the sound of my truck cranking up would startle it enough so that I would be able to make a clean getaway without having to make the ultimate Sophie’s Choice: would I be forced to run over the peacock in order to be able to get home, or would I be forced to sit there and wait until it decided on its own accord to move the hell out of my way? Making matters worse: the aforementioned couple had seen me enter my truck (read: I now had fucking witnesses capable of testifying about whatever choice I would end up making), and the idiot male half of the twosome had begun flailing his arms about like Icarus and yelling, “There’s a peacock in front of your truck! Hey, a peacock! In front of your truck!” I waved back to indicate that I was, in fact, fully aware, and he resumed snapping his photographs, happy as a clam.

I sat there cooling my heels for a couple of minutes, pondering the idea that only in Austin, Texas is foolishness like this even remotely capable of coming to fruition, when suddenly, to my immense relief, I saw the bird’s head slowly start to bob up and down, and his body begun to strut toward the other side of the parking lot. Then I realized what he was walking toward: three more couples had converged on the scene, camera phones in all hands, now blocking my exit entirely. Seemingly left with no other easily identifiable options, I, too, decided to join in the fun: I rolled down the window, grabbed my iPhone, and snapped my own damned picture, which you can see below.

(The wrap-up on the above story: after three or four minutes, the peacock strolled away back toward the wooded area behind the restaurant, without ever fully revealing his evidently impressive plumage, and all the formerly enthralled photographers headed back to their cars and drove away. As for me: dinner that night was grilled chicken, baked mac and cheese, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, and garlic toast, all courtesy of A, who very generously tossed this glorious meal together at the very last minute. Our barbecue feast is slated to occur later this week, on a day yet to be determined, and you’re all invited.)

Mariah Carey — “Almost Home”
(from Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful) —

The industry is (rightly) going nuts over Miss Mariah’s triumphant new collaboration with red-hot Grammy nominee Miguel, which is impacting top 40 radio in a big way this week, but I’m still scratching my head wondering what exactly happened with this delightful piffle. On the face of it, in terms of Oz-related film themes, attempting to follow up no less a universally beloved cultural touchstone than Judy Garland’s pristine “Over the Rainbow” just seems like pure folly, the least enviable task in the whole of modern music history. Smartly, Carey and company — including a mystifying five (!) co-writers — chose to flip the script, delivering a soaring, thoroughly harmless uptempo anthem which instantly re-establishes her as a relevant pop star. (True, “Home” is loaded with those trademark vocal trills that made Carey an icon two decades and change ago, but with the surprising electronica-inspired flourishes — courtesy of Norwegian production team Stargate, best known for their Grammy-winning work with the likes of Beyonce, Rihanna, and countless other pop tarts — buried deep within the music’s mainframe, this tune wouldn’t have sounded at all out of place on radio playlists next to Tegan and Sara — who have most probably already locked up tight this year’s single of the year derby with their fabulously fun breakthrough smash “Closer” — as spring turned to summer.) I have no credible intel on if mainstream pop radio just turned this one down flat, or if Island Def Jam blocked Disney from pushing this, knowing they had the Miguel duet in their back pocket — and if someone out there reading this knows the whole story, please share it with me — but no matter: in the daunting Oz canon, there’s no song like “Home.” It’s a lovely, eminently listenable, (almost) brilliant gem.

Counting Crows — “Start Again”
(from Underwater Sunshine) —

Some sixteen months ago or so, on a glum and gloomy Friday the 13th, I lay curled up like an inconsolable baby on my living room couch and wept like a dejected puppy watching what I truly believed were the final episodes of my all-time favorite television series, ABC’s classic soap opera One Life to Live, a show I had watched more-or-less daily for twenty-four of its forty-four years. (You may or may not recall my tear-stained love letter to my beloved Llanview-ites, which I wrote with drenched eyes, heavy heart, and gritted teeth on that final, ferociously wrenching afternoon.)

But just as nobody is ever really dead on soaps, rumors of the series’ demise turned out to have been greatly exaggerated: last week, One Life blew back onto the airwaves — alongside sister soap All My Children — via a groundbreaking online venture spearheaded by maverick production company Prospect Park, who have committed to at least a year’s worth of half-hour episodes of each program which are streaming on Hulu and Hulu Plus (and — new revenue stream alert! — which are available for download from the iTunes store.)

With the exception of Dorian Lord’s fabled mansion (which is now a sad shell of its formerly sprawling, gloriously grand self), the sets of One Life 2.0 — which had to be completely reconstructed from scratch, since ABC spitefully ordered the originals destroyed shortly after production had wrapped — are meticulously faithful renditions of their predecessors, and a large chunk of the show’s criminally cool cast — led by the peerless Erika Slezak, and including Hillary B. Smith, Robin Strasser, Jerry VerDorn, Bob Woods, Roger Howarth and Kassie DePaiva (who own 12 Daytime Emmys and roughly a zillion nominations between themselves) — have signed back on for this revolutionary reboot effort. (In addition, though she has since left the writing team, the opening scripts are being co-written by the fiercely fabulous Susan Bedsow Horgan — a not-infrequent visitor to Brandon’s Buzz Radio, and the woman who nurtured this show through its true glory years in the mid-1990s.)

It remains to be seen how this wickedly bold programming experiment will play itself out — Prospect Park has signed on for a year initially, and though we all pray this venture is a blockbuster success that makes those fops who run ABC rue the fucking day they ever decided to divebomb their entire daytime lineup in one fell swoop, just between you, me, and the lamppost, I’m having more than a little trouble figuring out how these folks are even going to get close to recouping such a massive monetary investment — tens of millions of dollars for each soap, and that’s not even counting the costly advertising blitz that has heralded these two shows back to the big time — by relying solely on the brave new frontier of online content delivery. But no matter: even if it is just for a year in the end, I can’t even begin to express how thrilling it is to again be able to revisit my fictional Pennsylvania pals for a spell each day, and to get a bit of real closure on a Life that found itself snuffed out long before its time. Second chances rarely come more well-deserved.

Elton John — “Little Jeannie” (from Greatest Hits 1970-2002) —

Even casual visitors to this site figure out fairly quickly that I am a massive soap fan, and for that, we can happily blame my maternal grandmother, who quite literally arranged her entire life around CBS’ forty-year-old classic serial The Young and the Restless. (Don’t think I’m kidding about that, either: she owned a catfish restaurant in the Texas Panhandle when I was a kid, and she opened the doors at 12 noon everyday, for the sole reason that her favorite soap came on at 11am and she could watch it while doing all her prep work for the day to come.) Her favorite character: the indomitable Katherine Chancellor, the alcoholic rich-bitch busybody played with inviolable grace and grit for nearly the entirety of Restless‘ run by the legendary Jeanne Cooper.

Cooper passed away yesterday morning at the age of 84, following a couple of years of steadily declining health and a brutal month battling a nasty infection that required multiple hospitalizations, and while the news was not exactly a great surprise — particularly if you’ve been following her son Corbin Bernsen’s regular Facebook and Twitter posts, which have kept her fans up to date on Jeanne’s condition — the loss is a staggering one for the increasingly insular world of daytime television. (Ironically, Cooper’s final Restless appearance — which was taped six weeks ago or so, just prior to her penultimate hospital stay — aired just last Friday, and fittingly, her bittersweet closing scenes were with Jess Walton, whose character, Jill Fenmore, has been the bane of Katherine’s existence since Nixon was in the White House.)

It seems silly to sit here and type a sentence like: I regarded, in a funny and wholly real way, Mrs. Chancellor as something of a surrogate grandmother. Although, it’s quite true that Katherine — and Cooper — managed to outlive both of my own biological grandmothers, and it’s equally true that Cooper could forever be counted on to shoot it straight, in the great matriarchal tradition, packing her hard-won sage wisdom into every syllable of her dialogue, no matter how soapily inane it may have been. (Indeed, if you allowed her dishy, divine memoir — Not Young, Still Restless — pass you by last summer, it’s just out in paperback, and you should run not walk to the closest bookstore: the tome loaded with fabulous stories about her experiences as a contract actress during Hollywood’s golden age, as well as tales about her triumphs and tragedies as an Emmy-winning soap queen. When she spills some delicious tea about the time her daffy co-star Kate Linder — who has portrayed Katherine’s hapless housekeeper for more than three decades — supposedly tried to get Cooper fired and usurp her onscreen position as lady of the manor, you’ll be rolling off the sofa in fits of laughter.) Fare thee well, madam; my daily visit to Genoa City isn’t gonna be the same without you, gal.

Whitney Houston — “Love That Man [Peter Rauhofer NYC Mix]”
(from Love That Man [The Mixes]) —

Tori Amos — “Flavor [Peter Rauhofer Club Mix]”
(from Flavor [The Mixes]) —

Anyone who gives even the slightest damn about the world of dance music must find him- or herself in deep mourning this day at the stunning death of the extraordinary DJ and remixer Peter Rauhofer, who lost his brutal battle with brain cancer yesterday at the far-too-young age of 48. Rauhofer never quite managed to hit the same rarefied commercial air as a handful of his peers and progenitors (think Todd Terry with his crazy-cool radical reinvention of Everything But the Girl’s formerly mellow “Missing”; think Brian Transeau’s electrifying mid-’90s work with Billie Ray Martin and others), but those trademark tribal beats with which he dabbled (and dazzled) so brilliantly were instantly identifiable, no matter the artist. He was probably best known for his work with Madonna and Cher (the classic remix of whose 1999 international smash “Believe” landed him a Grammy in 2000), but this morning, we here at the Buzz choose to pay our respects by blasting a pair of our favorites from among Rauhofer’s lesser-known mixes: “Man,” a rare highlight from the regrettably dreadful “crack-is-wack” period of Miss Whitney’s recording career; and the spankin’-new “Flavor” (released just last December), as glorious a career-capper as one could envision. (As I tweeted yesterday upon learning of Peter’s passing: The Goddess has been remixed by the best over the years — including the aforementioned BT, whose mad 1996 masterpiece “Blue Skies” made all of us burgeoning house fans rejoice, scream “Tori Tori hallelujah,” and be glad in it — but never once did she sound more bold, more bangin’, more badass than when in Rauhofer’s crisp, capable hands. You were a magicmaker at twirling the knobs and spinning the beats, Pete; may you now rest — and remix — in peace, ever.

”I loved [season] finales as a kid. Knots Landing had the best finales. So I really put my heart and soul into [mine] and try to make them special because I know that’s what I want to see as a viewer.”

— The Following creator Kevin Williamson, speaking to Entertainment Weekly about the climactic final installment of his cat-and-mouse drama’s intense first season, which airs tonight on Fox. (The above quote doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, except that I’ve had Knots on the brain lately — perhaps you can blame the conversation I just recorded for Brandon’s Buzz Radio with its legendary star Joan Van Ark, which I’ll be posting directly — and, seeing as how that show never really got the respect it so richly deserved during its original run throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, I always get a peculiar thrill out of spotting any of today’s brilliant showrunners daring to reference Knots as an inspiration for their own work. After all, their more muted, character-driven cliffhangers were often overshadowed — at least in terms of cultural interest and impact — by the flashier season-ending antics displayed by Dallas and Dynasty back in the day, but I for one strongly doubt I’ll ever see another finale as compelling as Knots‘ 1987 outing — the infamous “crack in the cement” event, which TV Guide‘s ace critic Matt Roush just this morning named as one of the 60 greatest closing episodes in television history — or its 1988 effort, a taut and terrifying two-person teleplay starring the dynamite Teri Austin as a completely deranged hellcat hell-bent on murdering her romantic rival — the aforementioned Ms. Van Ark — and making it look like suicide. Good luck trying to top either of those episodes, Kevin, and thanks for bringing back some fun memories, kind sir.)

Julie Roberts — “Break Down Here” (from Julie Roberts) —

Was I the only one devastated this past Monday night when not one of the four judges on NBC’s thrilling singing competion The Voice — not even fellow country artist Blake Shelton, who has made her acquaintance in the past and who was clearly heartbroken when he realized whose fine vocal stylings he had failed to recognize — turned his or her chair around for the magnificent Roberts, who was so desperately resolute in her determination to steal a second shot in the spotlight after a series of personal setbacks wiped out her once-promising career? Granted, her wobbly take on Shelton’s smash “God Gave Me You” was perhaps not the finest showcase for Roberts’ still-potent pipes, but I was rooting hard for her nonetheless, if only because I still clearly remember the blinding brilliance of her profoundly powerful 2004 debut album, as fine a collection of torch songs and burning ballads as Nashville has produced in the last two decades. That record, for reasons that still remain unclear to me, failed to make a serious dent in the country charts that year: “Here,” the stunning lead single, barely clawed its way into the top 20 at country radio, and its two follow-up tracks (including “Wake Up Older,” a gorgeously harrowing chronicle of an unfulfilling one night stand) hardly made it above number 50. A poorly-promoted sophomore effort stiffed a couple of years later, marking the end of the line for Roberts’ first stab at fame. Seeing her on national television the other night (for the first time in years!) served as a strong reminder that although said fame can be fickle and fleeting, talent always finds a way to re-emerge.

One of the rare creative high points in what has become yet another disappointing television season for NBC has been Ryan Murphy’s charmingly deranged dramedy The New Normal, which, with its stories on love, civil rights, fairness within the evolving social fabric, and the ties that bind us together — hardly paint-by-numbers, laugh-a-minute sitcom fodder — has offered up a fresh new twist on typical prime-time family fare. Among the sterling standouts of Normal‘s instantly winning ensemble has been the lovely lass Georgia King, who was already a star in the United Kingdom long before she took these shores by storm in the role of Goldie, a naive young Midwestern woman who winds up carrying as a surrogate a baby for a pair of California men — one of whom is portrayed by Broadway veteran Andrew Rannells, with whom I spoke earlier this year — desperate for a child of their own. Normal ends its first season this very evening on NBC with a special hourlong finale episode which will presumably showcase the conclusion of the pregnancy in question; I spoke with King a few months back about her entree into American television, keeping a straight face in a cast of utter cut-ups, and how in blazes she manages to hide that Scottish accent so impeccably.

BRANDON’S BUZZ: Having watched every episode of your show, I didn’t have the foggiest clue until I started reading up on you, in preparation of speaking with you, that you aren’t even an American actress! You’ve done an utterly marvelous job of masking and losing altogether your Scottish brogue!

GEORGIA KING: [Laughs] I forget myself that I’m doing another accent [for the show], to be honest, and the shock on peoples’ faces during Emmy weekend [last year] was enough to sort of jog my memory. I don’t stay in character [on set] either, so I’m there going — [assumes full Scottish accent] — “Hellooo, cup of tea!” And then it’s, “Action!” and we go straight for it.

I don’t know what it is. My mum is an opera singer, and I’m thinking maybe — I don’t know if that makes you, musically, quite good with hearing accents, or if I inherited some genetic [talent] from her. But I’ve certainly worked on it, and I certainly listen. I’ve spent a lot of time chatting with people from the Midwest just to double-check, and I definitely want to make sure I do a good job. But I’m focusing so much on the character’s pain and struggle and excitement and joy, all these different things that Goldie goes through, and I focus on that so hard that I tend to forget that the accent, to a lot of people, is shocking.

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Flo Rida (with the Bingo Players) — “I Cry” (from Wild Ones) —

In a trend that I can wholeheartedly support — if only because it draws attention to one of the greatest songs in the history of great songs, and that’s always a good thing — it has seemingly become quite trendy to construct upbeat hip-hop tunes around the still-thrilling chorus of Brenda Russell’s unforgettable 1988 classic “Piano in the Dark.” (Literally, I had to grab my own self by the hair the other morning and drag my clicking fingers away from the iTunes music store, where I bought so many such songs that I nearly gave myself carpal tunnel.) Flo is riding a hot hand of late, thanks to his smash collaborations with David Guetta and Sia — not to mention his ravishingly raunchy top 10 crossover hit “Whistle,” the lust-drunk lyrics of which make me blush urry time it pops up in a shuffle — and this irresistible slice of fierce fluff feels like one more triumph in a growing string of same. (In case you missed it, I had an absorbing conversation with Ms. Russell four years ago on Brandon’s Buzz Radio, and during the course of that chat, in what I would place amongst the show’s top ten most fascinating anecdotes, she revealed how “Piano” came to exist in the first place, and how — nonsensically — it almost wasn’t released as a single at all. The privilege of being able to ask Brenda the questions that elicited her stunning story stands as one of the highlights of my life, and if you’re at all a fan of great music, it’s sure to brighten your day.)

The 55th Annual Grammy Awards have arrived, thankfully with much less agita surrounding them this year than last, when my dear Miss Whitney passed away the night before the ceremony, a tragedy that cast an impenetrable pall over the entire event. This year, the focus is thankfully back on the music, and how: for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-the-hell-long, each of the four primary races seems to be a total toss-up heading into the home stretch, which suggests we could be in for some big surprises on Sunday night. (It would also appear to portend that a great many prognosticators will come away from these awards looking and feeling like big ol’ fools; as the great Dan Rather once said on Tom Snyder’s brilliant old CBS chat show, “He who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass.”) Still, I have a decent batting average with these predictions — which are made all the more tough by the fact that Recording Academy’s tastes can sometimes be notoriously difficult to pin down — over the history of this blog, and I’m feeling incredibly brave as I type this. Ergo, allow me to break down the major Grammy contests:

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