Bay Area Derailleurs Bike Dance. Burlesque by the Bombshells and the Cheesepuffs. Music by The Nerv and Tounge And Teeth. Plus DJs the rest of the night.
When I tell people that I bike dance I usually get a blank look. Sometimes they say something like:
“Oh god no…..bike dance. We are women that dance on, for, and about bikes. We dance with bike tubes. And bike helmets. And we have parasols made out of bike wheels. We are one part fly girls, one part 4th grade talent show. We promote bicycles through dance. Bike dance. We’re called the Derailleurs. Get it?”
We preform at events around the city and beyond, but if you’re reading this right now and you’re in SF it’s your lucky day. We are putting on an event tonight, MINI BIKE CABARET. It’s at 9pm at the Box Factory at 20th and Florida. The Derailleurs are preforming along with The Bombshells and The Cheesepuffs burlesque troupes, two bands, three DJs, bike movies all night, bake sale, AND MORE. Fun times, make it if you can!
Music and film are two separate and spectacular things that become a unified and beautiful creature when used purposely and well together. A scene gains so much emotion with the proper song. Likewise, a great song gains characters and storyline it didn’t have before. Lyrics like “putting out fire with gasoline” (from the David Bowie song “Cat People”) never meant so much to so many people collectively as when played at the end of “Inglourious Basterds,” when a theater full of trapped Nazis (including Hitler himself) is burning to the ground. A film director would be mistaken to not choose her soundtrack carefully, as it adds a huge amount of intangibles to the film (example: check out this scene from Royal Tenenbaums with the wrong music as compared to the original). Below are a few examples of great juxtaposition of music and film.
“Trainspotting,” Renton OD Scene with the Lou Reed song “Perfect Day”
Mark Renton
Renton is trying to get clean. He’s on prescribed Methadone, but it’s not enough. He gives in to his craving and heads over to the Mother Superior for a hit of smack. He inserts the needle into his vein and gasps as the last filthy drop of diacetylmorphine is injected into his blood stream. He lays back onto the floor and the opening piano to Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day” starts up. The lyrics starkly contrast the scene being played out. Reed sings about feeding animals at the zoo as Renton, unconscious, is dragged down the stairs feet first. “Oh it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you,” Reed bellows, as Renton lays motionless in the middle of the road. At the hospital, the sound of an emergency bell joins in the orchestration of the song. On a gurney in the hallway of the hospital nurses slap his face and yell at him to “wake up” as Lou Reed’s voice echoes the refrain, “You’re going to reap just what you sow.” Watch this scene
“Almost Famous,” Tour bus sing-along to Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”
Tour bus sing along
The sun is rising over Topeka, Kansas and a tour bus full of tired rock stars and band-aides pulls up in front of a dwindling house party. The bus is here to pick up William, a 15 year old rock journalist for Rolling Stone, and the band’s lead guitarist who disappeared after a fight with the rest of the band. Back on the bus the mood is heavy. It’s been a long time on the road and everyone is tired. As the bus pulls away from the house “Tiny Dancer” starts playing. The camera pans around the bus. The drummer taps the beat to Tiny Dancer on his shoes and others bob their heads to the song in their heads. One member of the band starts singing the song mid verse. One by one the rest of the bus joins in. The stone-wall looks on their faces crack into smiles. The feeling that everything is going to be alright takes over. William turns to Penny and says “I have to go home” and Penny says, “You are home.” And everything’s gonna be alright. Watch this scene Watch Dave Grohl try to recreate this on the Craig Kilborn Show
When a friend asked me if I knew the album Graceland by Paul Simon, I didn’t have a straight answer. I went through the musical Rolodex in my head….
Sure I knew who Paul Simon was. He did that eerie song “The Sound of Silence” with Art Garfunkel. And Paul Simon….yeah, he’s done some great pop songs as a solo artist too, some of which I even had mp3s of on my computer. I had a surface knowledge of the man, but had never gone any deeper with his music.
Paul Simon….Graceland….sure, I know the song….but…I reluctantly admitted the answer “No. No I don’t know the album Graceland.”
A copy was burned for me to take on my solo road trip – San Francisco to Chicago and back. I popped it in the first time while driving through the Nevada desert.
Alone in the middle of pure unadulterated beauty the title track comes on:
The Mississippi Delta was shining
Like a National guitar,
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the civil war
The scenery is different, but the feeling of beauty, freedom, and awe is the same.
I listened to it again before I left Nevada, then again somewhere in Utah. The album became the anthem for my trip. I passed a guy on a motorcycle wearing a Graceland Harley Davidson shirt. Then the stretch of I-55 I was on in IL became the “Paul Simon Freeway” (after the Senator from IL). I considered making a pilgrimage to Graceland right then and there. Not for Elvis, but for Paul Simon.
Paul Simon can write a great hook, but more than that the man is an amazing storyteller. His songs tend to not be grand fabricated stories about sex, drugs, and/or rock and roll. Instead, he is a master of the casual story. The everyday mundane is beautiful and perfect when told through his soft and high-pitched voice.
And the man isn’t afraid to take risks. He experimented with funky rhythms not typical at the time to the white pop/folk artist. Graceland, for example, was recorded in South Africa and the influence of the region is infused throughout the record.
When I got to Chicago I scoured my dad’s old record collection for some gems to bring back to SF with me. I came across Paul Simon, the self-titled solo debut.
Holy hell. What an amazing album. While softer and more “folksy” than Graceland, the storytelling is just as brilliant. There is also a hint of world music influence. The first song, “Mother and Child Reunion,” is a reggae tune. Where Graceland’s South African influence weaves throughout the album, the reggae influence stops with the first song on Paul Simon. Where it is slightly less cohesive in its sound than Graceland it’s not less brilliant. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard is a funky and upbeat song that was a top 40 hit. The rest of the album is more low key than the aforementioned tracks, but has a subtle beauty that is impossible to ignore.
Understated beauty: Papa Hobo from the album Paul Simon
While these two albums have made it into my large list of desert island music, I’ve been reluctant to explore Paul Simon’s music further. I’ve read that his discography is pretty hit or miss and sometimes uninspired, but I would be thrilled to find this description inaccurate.
