Bring on the dancing boys

Nice arse

You know how it is - or at least, please tell me you do - when sometimes you just can't help looking at something you feel you really shouldn't.  No matter how much you may deny it to others, you can't kid yourself: you're looking, and looking again, and getting off on it.  It's a weakness.

Well I'm coming clean - this is mine (or at least one of them): men dancing in ways you don't expect.  I get this weird thrill from it.  I think I could watch all of these on an infinite loop...I just can't take my eyes off them.

Again!  

Again!

Honestly, they just make me happy.

I mean, first of all, there's pin-up boy Jim Dandy from Black Oak Arkansas.  He's made an appearance on this blog before but, as I say, it's a weakness.

He starts to get particularly interesting around 2 minutes 20 seconds in on this clip.  Watch him strut his stuff - pull up a chair and open that bag of cheese'n'onion crisps (don't worry about the crumbs, you can hoover them up later).   It feels so wrong... but yet so right.

Samuel T Herring's name alone is the stuff of my dreams.  Then I saw him dance.  I wish the frontman from Future Islands didn't look quite so much like the bewildered love child of Elvis and Norman Wisdom but you can't have everything.  

"Mr Grimsdale!  Mr Grimsdale!"

Now... keep your eyes on the tambourine player from the 1910 Fruitgum Company on the right in this clip below from the German show Beat Club, performing Goody Goody Gumdrops (or cumdrops as I accidentally typed just now... honestly I did!...I know, I know: you didn't come here to read such filth).  God, I love him.

Finally, the Fine Young Cannibals and guitarist Andy Cox's bendy legs. Bassist David Steele is at it too. I'm thinking of those cardboard puppet things. Actually I can hardly bear to watch.  More!

Don't judge me.

Fine and dandy

I confess I’d never heard of Black Oak Arkansas before Friday night.  Or at the very least, any glimmer of recognition at the name was from thinking they were contestants in ‘Wacky Races’…  But, after watching ‘Sweet Home Alabama, The Southern Rock Saga’ on BBC4 that evening, followed by ‘Southern Rock at the BBC’, the name will stick in my mind for quite a while.  Or at least the imagery will.

I think most rockumentaries are interesting, no matter what the genre or how it fits with one’s taste.  I like the occasional bit of Southern Rock but have never really paid that much attention to the songs or stories of groups like the Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc., so I found ‘The Southern Rock Saga’ revealing and interesting.  Good programmes like these get behind the music and into the personalities, the tragedies and the context of the time, and that’s what makes them so fascinating.  I came away with a much higher opinion of all those guys, who had rebelled against the conservative rural farming backdrop of their roots and the limited career options it offered, whilst still managing to represent the true essence of what it is to be a Southerner.  (Well, that’s how it came across to this British viewer.)

Anyway that was good, so we carried on watching the following programme which showcased a number of bands’ BBC appearances from the 1970s:  for example, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Delaney & Bonnie.  And Black Oak Arkansas.  

Well, please do yourself a favour and watch this clip.  I don’t expect all of you to like them – the song is fairly formless and the vocals are really rough.  Bear in mind it’s from the mid seventies, so it was before the new wave of spandex-clad heavy metal bands started strutting their stuff.  But I defy you not to find the flamboyant performance of androgynous vocalist Jim Dandy utterly compelling, no matter what your musical taste, gender or sexual orientation.  Fast forward to 2 minutes 20 seconds for your first taster of the man’s unique appeal (and I’m not talking about the bulge in his trousers).  Then again, from 3 minutes 5 seconds in until the end.  Even if you just watch with the volume off, I think I can guarantee he will make you smile.