East Coast/West Coast war: public access songbirds collide!

I’m going to be linking to many of the items on YouTube that I feel deserve recognition, in an effort to expand what we do on the show every week into — yes, gotta say it, gotta say it — the 21st century. In this case, these vids haven’t been exactly “viral” in the sense of the YT “celebs” saluted on talking-heads shows on VH1. But then again, this stuff, my friends, is the real meat of the matter: folks who are completely sincere about what they’re doing, and they did in a medium dear to my own heart, cable-access.

The first is a song that functions on a “Day in the Life” level: it’s a two-part song by a NYC songbird who made her only TV appearances on MNN’s beloved “Stairway to Stardom.” We salute the obsessed souls who have put the STS clips on YouTube, Mitch Friedman and Jennifer Sharpe, and there are literally dozens of memorable performance up there right now. But few can compare to the joy of Lucille Cataldo, and her original composition, “Hairdresser, Haidresser.” I am particularly taken by the way the song slides into something called “Tease Louise,” which seems to be another song entirely, but is wrapped into the hairdresser theme by Lucille. They always say “write about what you know,” and Ms. Cataldo clearly did that here (rarely has the process of being at a hairdresser been rendered in such a detailed way).

And now we come to the Left Coast’s contribution to the insanely catchy song competition, a song that is itself about insanity. I’ve been told this is a well known commodity on the ’Tube (it has already spawned several cover versions), but I just discovered it last week, and now cannot shake it out of my cranium, no matter how hard I try. It’s Penny Pearce’s penetratingly aggressive “Why Do You Think You Are Nuts?” The song is quite something — although not as complex musically as Cataldo’s two-part epic, Penny and her pals do get into an Alice Cooper groove here with some theatrics that are complemented by their wonderful, non-matching outfits. Feel free to cast a vote for your favorite demented ditty.


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