REAL ART NEW YEAR'S MUSIC VIDEO PARTY!

Well, with most of my classmates out of town, and no party invitations in my mailbox, I'm spending a quiet New Year's Eve at home this year. Don't worry about me, though. I'm frying up some chicken, and have a bottle of champagne to crack open at the right moment, and I've been watching football all day, which will continue, of course, tomorrow.

But here at Real Art, things are just swinging! I've been hanging onto some cool Youtube music video links for a while, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to post them. So let's rock out for New Year's Real Art style!

First, a rockin' Gypsy-style frenzy from my favorite frenzy band Gogol Bordello! Click here for some Eastern European punk rock, more specifically the song "I Would Never Want to Be Young Again."



Next, everybody's favorite Sesame Street hipster, Mahna Mahna (a.k.a. Bip Bipadotta), singing everybody's favorite hip Sesame Street tune called "Mahna Mahna." Did you know the song first appeared in a European soft-core porn flick? God, I love the weird irony on that! Click here for Muppet hipness.



There's no beatnik like a Muppet beatnik, if you ask me.

Next, a live performance of the Grateful Dead's "US Blues," taped in 1985, on a tour which I got to see when it came through Houston. It's one of my favorites, with a strong hippie-country twang, one of the things I like most about the Dead. Check it out here.



I got for Christmas the album French Kiss by former Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch. I had been grooving to his stuff on the radio recently, did a little reading about him, and just had to have what's considered to be his best album. Unfortunately, his trademark fusion of late 70s disco and rock isn't quite as good as the critics might suggest. Not bad, really, but not great either. However, I do have for you videos for the best two tracks on the CD, which are great, and with which you may already be familiar.

Click here for "Ebony Eyes."

Click here for "Sentimental Lady."

You know, not only is this second one great, I would go out on a limb and place it in the all time top five for love songs, right up there with "Yesterday" and others. It just makes me melt whenever I hear it, even when it's the backdrop for a caveman commercial.



And what would New Year's be without some jazz? Here's a great performance of Louisana's own Louis Armstrong doing the Brecht and Weill tune "Mac the Knife." God I love this song!



And how about some classy stuff? How about some Miles Davis playing with the Gil Evans Orchestra? Here's a fantastic performance of a song dedicated to one of America's greatest composers called "The Duke."



And while we're talking about the Duke, and just to up the ante on New Year's classiness, here's the man himself, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra, performing the big band standard "Satin Doll." Check it out here (it cuts off during the bass solo, but I think you get enough to get the idea...). Man, if all those dinner jackets the band is wearing doesn't get you into the New Year's spirit, nothing will.



Okay, that's enough for now. Time to go fry up my New Year's chicken! Happy New Year!

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