Posts Tagged ‘michael jackson

12
Dec
11

Foy Vance Conquers &Union

By SlickTiger Leave a Comment
Categories: Being Slick, Events, Good Times and Killer Posts
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13597aThe true merit of any musician is not measured in a recording studio, it is measured from the minute they step onstage until the minute they step off.

As a performer it can be intensely nerve wracking, especially if you’re going up there alone in front of a crowd a hundred thousand miles from home that knows you for one or two songs if you’re lucky.

But if Irish singer / songwriter Foy Vance was nervous before he went onstage at &Union in Cape Town last Friday night to deliver one of the best performances I’ve heard this year, he sure as hell didn’t show it.

From the first few chords of the gospel / blues anthem “I Got Love” to the audience singing the chorous of the soulful acoustic ballad “Guiding Light” over and over, long after Foy himself had stopped playing, his performance was nothing short of inspirational.

It was interesting to note that, over the course of the evening, everyone I spoke to about his set professed to not only know exactly who he is, but were also proud to say they owned at least one or two of his albums.

 

 

Whether this was true or not I’ll never know, but either way it shows that his music struck a chord with the audience gathered at &Union on Friday, though to be honest I could have guessed that just by watching their reaction to his set.

His set was split down the middle between his own material and his favourite covers which included the Paul Simon track “You Can Call Me Al”, one of my favourite Hendrix songs of all time “Crosstown Traffic”, the Michael Jackson classic “Billy Jean”, the most soulful rendition of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” I’ve ever heard and even a cover of the long lost Joan Osborne song “What If God Was One Of Us?”

But for me, the highlight of his set was hearing him play “Hold Me In Your Arms” which, I found out later is one of his original songs. There’s something in the stark honesty of that song, the way it builds slowly to it’s howling, heartfelt climax that tears me up every time I hear it and Friday night was no exception.

Looking around at the sea of happy faces laughing at his jokes, clapping and singing along to his songs and demanding he go back onstage for an encore that ended up lasting another 40 minutes, I couldn’t help but feel like for that brief moment, everything was right in the world.

The wind whipped through the trees on either side of Foy as he played and his voice rang out through the streets for a five block radius from Hout Street to Wale and Loop Street to Buitengracht. The mic was his pulpit and we were his choir, the holy spirit blowing all around us while we danced and drank and celebrated being ALIVE brother!

 

 

After Foy finished up at &Union, we jumped in the car and hit the Shack to shoot the breeze and play some pool (he kicked my ass 2 games to 1, but we teamed up to play some challengers and mopped the floor with them).

I got to know the man a little better over a couple of rounds of drinks and can honestly say his talent is outweighed only by his humility and his soulfulness by his quick wit, which is sharp as a tack and had us laughing until the early hours of the morning.

It’s no surprise to me that his songs have continued to ring out inside my head from after I shook his hand and bade him farewell sometime around 3 on Saturday morning right up until now as I struggle to put the experience of meeting him and watching him play into words.

Suffice to say, Foy taught me something I consider extremely valuable, that what I previously thought was gospel – that the true merit of a musician is measured from the minute he steps onstage until the minute he steps off – isn’t actually true.

The true merit of a musician extends far beyond his performance. If the man himself doesn’t weigh up to the man onstage, his authenticity of both his character and his music becomes compromised.

Foy is a great musician because he is a great person. The two go hand in hand, and I only hope that his career continues to grow from strength to strength in the coming years and that sometime in the future, at a nameless bar on a nameless night, our paths may cross again.

 

 

-ST

13
Jul
10

The Tiger’s Top 3 Swearers Of All Time

By SlickTiger 11 Comments
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Swearing is something nobody stops to think about because all of us do it all the fucking time. There was a time when slipping the odd ‘fuck’ into everyday conversation was like flashing your willy at your girlfriend’s parents or flashing your vagina at err, well, anyone really.

I trawled the internet for information about swearing to back my theory up about how nobody gives a fuck about it anymore and after countless hours of searching, found the following useful infographic:

 

 

As this graph clearly illustrates, since the new millennium began way back in 2000, people’s attitudes to swearing have changed quite drastically. So much so, that except for a sharp spike around 2010 (which was probably a result of the graph artist being shouted at by his boss for drawing silly graphs instead of doing his day job) we can see without a shadow of a doubt that people actually enjoy the fuck out of swearing.

Nowadays you can’t even go to the fucking video store without hearing a ‘shit’, ‘ass’ or ‘fuck’ somewhere, whether it’s the dude behind the counter lambasting you for returning the Lord Of The Rings boxset 6 months late or the car guard outside attacking you verbally for reversing over his leg, it seems EVERYONE thinks it’s cool to let rip with a ‘eat shit muthufukka’ whenever it suits them.

I blame rap music for this diabolical drop in societal standards. That and Verimark infomercials which though they may not contain any swearing, really make you want to swear.

 

 

Inevitably, with this increase in volume of swearing comes a marked decrease in the quality of swearing. People just don’t say ‘fuck’ like they used to, they don’t say it with any feeling or any meaning which I think is not only an insult to this brilliantly versatile word, but also reflects poorly on the swearer himself who is probably only doing it to sound ‘hip’.

And so I’ve compiled a list of my top 3 swearers of all time so that people can listen to these cats and learn how to swear fucking well, because until you can do that, no one’s gonna take you seriously, not your boss, not your girlfriend, not her parents, not your parents, not even your friends, nobody.

So pay attention, this will change your life.

 

NUMERO TRES: Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson has been swearing since way back when he was banging your mom at Woodstock, which makes him a certified pro at dropping the F-bomb with maximum impact.

He’s got the whole devilish charm thing working for him tinged with a healthy dose of sheer insanity which makes him really compelling to watch because you constantly get the feeling like he’s going to flip the fuck out at any given moment.

 

 

When he says ‘fuck’ he means it. He doesn’t just fire the word out there willy nilly, no. He says it with enough gravity to crush planets. He makes you feel like he’s swearing at you, like you’re the one who fucked up, asshole.

Just rent The Shining and watch for the scene when he verbally assaults Shelley Duvall on the staircase of the Overlook Hotel. Or how about the one where he explains to Duvall why she shouldn’t bother him while he’s writing? It’s pretty brutal.

Jack Torrance: Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you’re breaking my concentration. You’re distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand?
Wendy Torrance: Yeah.
Jack Torrance: Now, we’re going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me typing
[types]
Jack Torrance: or whether you DON’T hear me typing, or whatever the FUCK you hear me doing; when I’m in here, it means that I am working, THAT means don’t come in. Now, do you think you can handle that?
Wendy Torrance: Yeah.
Jack Torrance: Good. Now why don’t you start right now and get the fuck out of here? Hm?

It’s bad enough just reading it, but hearing him say it makes you want to get the fuck out of there too. Take a note out of Jack’s book, swear like you’re dangerously close to losing your mind and people will simultaneously fear AND respect you.

 

NUMERO DOS: Edward Norton

What’s great about Ed Norton’s swears is that he is able to load his colourful language with SARCASM AND IRONY. When he swears he sounds like he’s sick to death of all this fucking hypocritical bullshit y’know?

 

 

His ‘fucks’ are LADEN with burning, biting sarcasm that communicate a kind of world-weariness that can’t be faked.

You can’t get angry at a guy like Ed Norton when he swears at you because he’s so completely beyond giving a fuck that you’d just look like an asshole if you took any offence to him calling you a backward, cousin-fucking retard.

Of course, when he’s angry his ‘fucks’ land like haymakers, just watch the monologue scene when Norton’s staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror in The 25th Hour and you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Monty Brogan: Yeah, fuck you, too. Fuck *me*? Fuck *you*, Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car – get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin’ and dealin’ and schemin’. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE!

Powerful stuff. When he doesn’t give a fuck, his swears are cool as hell, but when he does you get the fuck out of his way FAST.

 

NUMERO UNO: Chris Rock

No man on this Earth swears with the passion, explosiveness or brute force of Chris Rock, it’s like getting blasted in the face with a shotgun, awe-inspiring stuff I tell ya!

The thing about Mr Rock is he relishes his swear words, he knows how powerful they can be when delivered correctly and has probably worked his whole life to make sure that no other man on this planet can match him when it comes to the sheer force of his swears.

 

 

He’s like a fucking force of nature, especially when he’s doing stand-up. Rent one of his shows and watch it nice and loud to get the full effect.

Also, the man’s funny as fuck.

Chris Rock: Damn. It’s all fucked. The world’s fucked up man. Michael Jackson lost his mind. What the hell is wrong with Michael? Another kid? Another kid? I thought it was groundhog’s day when I heard that shit. Another kid. Get the fuck out of here. That’s how much we love Michael. We love Michael so much. We let the first kid slide. Another kid. I’m fuckin done. I’m done with Michael. I was a fan my whole life. I am fuckin’ done! I’m handing in my glove. I saw Michael on 60 Minutes. Ed Bradley tried his best to make Michael look like a mammal. Someone that drink water and breathe air, right? He gave Michael the easiest question in the world, the easiest GED questions in the world, and Michael could not pass the test. He said, "Oh Michael, do you think it’s proper for a 45 year old man to sleep in the bed with 13 year old boys?"
[Michael says]
Chris Rock: "Yes".
[Ed Bradley says]
Chris Rock: "Ok, ok, oh let me rephrase that question." "Michael, would you let your children sleep in a bed with a 45 year old man that has been accused of child molestation?"
[Michael says]
Chris Rock: "Yes". Ed Bradley looked at Michael Jackson like he wanted to say, "Nigga, is you crazy?" Like he wanted to take the 60 Minutes clock and push the shit forward and say "get the fuck off my show!"

Hope you’ve enjoyed my choice of top 3 swearers of all time. I’d challenge the people reading this to add to this list, but I know they won’t because a) I’ve fucking nailed it! NAILED IT IN THE ASS! and b) No one fucking reads this.

-ST