Some things and some people should close shop if what they're giving the public is the best they can. If it's not, they need to stop faking.
That's how we (Ava and C.I.) arrived at PBS for this week's review. Ty will tell you PBS is one of the biggest topics we don't cover. PBS is not a network in the way ABC or CBS is (other than the fact that all three run advertisements -- though PBS tries to act as though it doesn't). Stations aren't required to carry programs. They, in fact, pay the CPB to carry national programming. So, as we noted long ago, what you get depends upon where you live.
One topic in the e-mails of late was a Rod Stewart special. We're not sure where it recently aired (we know some members were gearing up to watch it in some areas) but we caught it on our PBS station Christmas Day in 2006 as part of the Great Performances series.
We thought that deserved comment. Great Performances has won many Emmys . . . for programs it produced. The Rod Stewart special, One Night Only, like all too many PBS telecasts these days, is nothing but a DVD put out long before PBS ever got the rights to air it. One Night Only is the name of the concert DVD. And though PBS wants to put it under the umbrella of "great" (and in some areas use it for fundraising), there's not much great about it -- or even good.
Here's the great. For one song, "The First Cut Is The Deepest," Stewart puts across a song with a performance that demonstrates why he became a rock star in the first place. On "As Time Goes By," while Rod embarrasses himself repeatedly, Chrissie Hynde demonstrate that her magical voice can find new life in anything. In her own way vocally, she's the closest living approximate to Dusty Springfield in that regard.
If you think cheese is great, if you think seeing your grandpa acting like he's drunk and off his rocker, One Night Only truly was a great performance. Possibly, if you don't own a DVD player or weren't planning to rent or purchase One Night Only, PBS offered you a distraction for one night but it didn't belong under the banner of "art."
"You Wear It Well" was the opener. Either due to nerves or because his voice hadn't opened up yet, it was a pretty awful performance as he mangled the melody throughout each verse but occasionally managed to soar in certain spots on the chorus. He also felt that this was a song whose lyrics could be mucked with and while "sinking" and "thinking" rhyme, "thinking" and "thinking" merely repeats -- helping to destroy what his lousy performance didn't. He sweats a lot and plays with his hair a great deal as he clomps around the stage which isn't a good sign for the first number and honestly reminded us of Whitney Houston's disastrous AMA performance (January 1999) where she clomped around a lot, sweated like a pig, stomped the stage with one foot repeatedly, wiped herself with something she pulled out of her sleeve, and never hit the right note on any of her songs. With Houston, it was obvious the problem was drugs. With Rod it appeared to be sloth and indifference. (Though some may wonder what the dark liquid in the glass he repeatedly drinks onstage is.)
Next up, Rod offerd that Robert Palmer (the singer and "a great drinking buddy") has died as he launched into "Some Guys Have All The Luck." If you're confused, so were we.
That's how we (Ava and C.I.) arrived at PBS for this week's review. Ty will tell you PBS is one of the biggest topics we don't cover. PBS is not a network in the way ABC or CBS is (other than the fact that all three run advertisements -- though PBS tries to act as though it doesn't). Stations aren't required to carry programs. They, in fact, pay the CPB to carry national programming. So, as we noted long ago, what you get depends upon where you live.
One topic in the e-mails of late was a Rod Stewart special. We're not sure where it recently aired (we know some members were gearing up to watch it in some areas) but we caught it on our PBS station Christmas Day in 2006 as part of the Great Performances series.
We thought that deserved comment. Great Performances has won many Emmys . . . for programs it produced. The Rod Stewart special, One Night Only, like all too many PBS telecasts these days, is nothing but a DVD put out long before PBS ever got the rights to air it. One Night Only is the name of the concert DVD. And though PBS wants to put it under the umbrella of "great" (and in some areas use it for fundraising), there's not much great about it -- or even good.
Here's the great. For one song, "The First Cut Is The Deepest," Stewart puts across a song with a performance that demonstrates why he became a rock star in the first place. On "As Time Goes By," while Rod embarrasses himself repeatedly, Chrissie Hynde demonstrate that her magical voice can find new life in anything. In her own way vocally, she's the closest living approximate to Dusty Springfield in that regard.
If you think cheese is great, if you think seeing your grandpa acting like he's drunk and off his rocker, One Night Only truly was a great performance. Possibly, if you don't own a DVD player or weren't planning to rent or purchase One Night Only, PBS offered you a distraction for one night but it didn't belong under the banner of "art."
"You Wear It Well" was the opener. Either due to nerves or because his voice hadn't opened up yet, it was a pretty awful performance as he mangled the melody throughout each verse but occasionally managed to soar in certain spots on the chorus. He also felt that this was a song whose lyrics could be mucked with and while "sinking" and "thinking" rhyme, "thinking" and "thinking" merely repeats -- helping to destroy what his lousy performance didn't. He sweats a lot and plays with his hair a great deal as he clomps around the stage which isn't a good sign for the first number and honestly reminded us of Whitney Houston's disastrous AMA performance (January 1999) where she clomped around a lot, sweated like a pig, stomped the stage with one foot repeatedly, wiped herself with something she pulled out of her sleeve, and never hit the right note on any of her songs. With Houston, it was obvious the problem was drugs. With Rod it appeared to be sloth and indifference. (Though some may wonder what the dark liquid in the glass he repeatedly drinks onstage is.)
Next up, Rod offerd that Robert Palmer (the singer and "a great drinking buddy") has died as he launched into "Some Guys Have All The Luck." If you're confused, so were we.
Is he suggesting that Palmer's "luck" was in dying or that Palmer didn't have luck? We couldn't tell you and chances are Rod couldn't either. A woman does a sax solo in a short skirt. During the rock numbers, women appear to be chosen for the band based on how they looked in a crotch cover (don't call those skirts). Rod wore clothes poorly but he was always covered by them. Watching him grind into a backup singer (female, of course) on "Hot Legs," was like watching Grandpa hitting on his nurse -- you had to look away.
Rod's voice opened up on "Some Guys Have All The Luck" and he was starting to hit his stride as he began another song ("the A-side to 'Maggie Mae,'" he informed and advised that someone should record it): "Reason to Believe." A number of people, including Rod, have recorded Tim Hardin's classic over the years (we'd argue the underrated Wilson Philips did the best cover, it's certainly the one that caught Rod's ear and led to his recording it for his live MTV special many, many years ago).
So Rod and the audience are singing the song to sparse accompaniment and it looks like he'll have a winner. Then the band kicks in and it's as though you're back in the seventies, at Sears, and some twerp is testing out the rhythm buttons on an organ. To make it really clear, "Reason To Believe" shouldn't be a hip shaking number; however, with the arrangement performed, it's no surprise that the women the cameras kept ogling couldn't help but shake their hips.
At this point, what you'd seen wasn't enough talent to rate an appearance before the microphone in the lowest of dives -- not even on an open mike night. But he brought out old partner Ron Wood (who is much better off these days in the Rolling Stones) and Rod had a nice bit of stage patter before launching into a performance of "Stay With Me" -- a performance that would result in a resounding "NO!"
"Rhythm of My Heart" has always been an embarrassment -- sounding like it was intended to be background music for a Joanie Greggains audio cassette workout tape in the 80s. His stage patter doesn't save it. The concert was recorded in 2004, much too late in the game to cut Rod any slack for claiming Iraq was a war about "our freedom." You're left to wonder if, in one of his many very public break ups, someone else got custody of the brain as well as the talent.
The break ups? Should we go straight to Britt? We wish the special had. Instead it went to the career graveyard Rod now inhabits. Dame Edna (who was the host of this so-called great performance which included Edna making old and tired cocaine jokes) advised you it was now time for Rod to sing "great songs of the past" -- and no, she didn't mean his 70s hit.
Rod emerged in a tuxedo. He does not wear it well. The black t-shirt and red jacket used at other times in the special hearkened more to Huey Lewis than Rod but at least he appeared comfortable. In a tux, he just looks fat and all the less graceful. If the dash across the stage he did during "Some Guys Have All The Luck" looked klutzy (and it did), that was practically a ballet compared to whatever he thought his body was doing in this segment.
"They Can't Take That From Me" may be the worst performance but it's a hard call. On "For Sentimental Reasons," he sounds strangely like Louis Armstrong. Yet on Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World," Rod sounds like Eartha Kitt coughing up phlegm. He rarely sounded like Rod and he rarely honored a melody. By the time Chrissie Hynde joined him for "As Times Goes By," he seemed like he was doing a send up of a drunken Dean Martin. He continued that throughout his duet with her (one that he had to stop and start over) which is why only Hynde came off well.
If you've make it that far, wait a bit longer. "The First Cut Is The Deepest" is Rod being Rod, Rod doing what made famous in a style that would still make him famous today if he was just starting out. But that's really it. The concert goes on (and on) but there's nothing worth seeing. To mark time, you can count how many times he plays with his hair standing up and how many times he does that while bent at the waist. Tina Turner could offer him some tips on hair pieces that hold up under hot lights but it probably wouldn't do any good. He never learned any dance steps from her -- as he demonstrates throughout but most obviously during "Hot Legs."
"Hot Legs" is an audience sing-a-long. Now those can be quite powerful. It worked in "Reason To Believe" before someone decided the band needed to kick in with a cheesy beat. It works in "The First Cut Is The Deepest." It doesn't work in other songs like "Hot Legs" and "Maggie Mae" where the audience isn't adding to the song, they're carrying it. Singing and stumbling around the stage is apparently a lot of work for Rod, so much so that he turns whole sections of the songs over to the audience.
Night of the Living Rod is a scary sight. That PBS wants to pass off DVDs that are over two years old as PBS product and, worse yet, as a Great Performances is grounds for a class action lawsuit. They have another type of music special they're fond of these days. It's the clip job. Often they get two or three specials out of the same concert. They feature an artist performing a song and then go to another artist and then, months later, if you pay attention, you'll note the 'new' special with pretty much the same performers take place at the same hall with performers wearing the same outfits. It's a way to pay for the expenses of one concert while milking into it several specials. In the mid 90s (1994), Carole King actually gave a concert for PBS. It was later a CD and video, but the concert was seen first on PBS. These days, they take an old Fleetwood Mac concert (like the one for The Dance) that HBO or another cable channel has shown repeatedly and then trot it out as their special -- or worse, trot it out as their special during pledge drives.
Where does the money go at PBS? In 2005, Peter Hart and Steve Rendall (FAIR) noted, "The CPB provides approximately $400 million a year to NPR and PBS -- about 15 percent of the two entities' combined budget." Where does the money go? We're not seeing any chunks of it going for original music production.
At The Huffington Post last week, Eric Williams noted the PBS pledge drives:
It's an amazing bait-and-switch. Every few months, your local PBS station begs you -- and Viewers Like You -- to support their programming for the rest of the year, yet they do this by cramming their schedule with shows which they ONLY air when they're pleading for dough. We get Eagles: Hell Freezes Over and Pink Floyd: Pulse and tributes to doo-wop and the British Invasion. We get Suze Orman and Dr. Wayne Dyer and some guy who'll teach you how to play the piano in an afternoon.
As viewers in some areas get Rod Stewart's nothing special as evidence of the best that PBS can offer (we all got it billed under the Great Performances' umbrella), you really do have to wonder where the money goes. Suze Orman, coming off like a carney barker each pledge drive, should be paying PBS to air her infomercials. We've missed the piano in an afternoon bit on PBS but we have seen one late at night on cable, where it's clearly an infomercial.
So PBS pledge drive programming these days is like a trip to the musical section of your local video rental combined with infomercials. Exactly where does the money go? Regular programming seems to consist of home repair and glorified garage sales. Is this really the best that millions and millions a year can buy? So many questions.
The answer for Rod Stewart's career as an artist should have been to strip down to basics. He didn't do that. He's pursued the Andy Williams route and may it inspire a musical revolt -- the same way some of his work was often groused about by early members of the punk rock movement. But Stewart's not the only one wasting a lot of money and getting applause for just showing up. The same is true of PBS.
Years ago, Rod was sued for palimony by Britt Ekland and Rod, to appease her, and hold on to the money, wrote "You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)." Ekland, mollified, walked away from millions. Rod can't walk away from Britt. He still has to perform the hit song and audience favorite. He does so in the special and, in one embarrassing moment, points to "Celtic" on the back of his jacket and sings "You're the best football team I've ever seen." Britt long ago moved on. Rod's stuck singing the same old song, even when he pairs it with other, even older, songs. He can pretend it's about a football team and maybe even fool himself for a minute or two. PBS can air this corn and maybe fool a viewer or two. But there's no denying that both Rod and PBS are in dire need of reinvention.
Rod's voice opened up on "Some Guys Have All The Luck" and he was starting to hit his stride as he began another song ("the A-side to 'Maggie Mae,'" he informed and advised that someone should record it): "Reason to Believe." A number of people, including Rod, have recorded Tim Hardin's classic over the years (we'd argue the underrated Wilson Philips did the best cover, it's certainly the one that caught Rod's ear and led to his recording it for his live MTV special many, many years ago).
So Rod and the audience are singing the song to sparse accompaniment and it looks like he'll have a winner. Then the band kicks in and it's as though you're back in the seventies, at Sears, and some twerp is testing out the rhythm buttons on an organ. To make it really clear, "Reason To Believe" shouldn't be a hip shaking number; however, with the arrangement performed, it's no surprise that the women the cameras kept ogling couldn't help but shake their hips.
At this point, what you'd seen wasn't enough talent to rate an appearance before the microphone in the lowest of dives -- not even on an open mike night. But he brought out old partner Ron Wood (who is much better off these days in the Rolling Stones) and Rod had a nice bit of stage patter before launching into a performance of "Stay With Me" -- a performance that would result in a resounding "NO!"
"Rhythm of My Heart" has always been an embarrassment -- sounding like it was intended to be background music for a Joanie Greggains audio cassette workout tape in the 80s. His stage patter doesn't save it. The concert was recorded in 2004, much too late in the game to cut Rod any slack for claiming Iraq was a war about "our freedom." You're left to wonder if, in one of his many very public break ups, someone else got custody of the brain as well as the talent.
The break ups? Should we go straight to Britt? We wish the special had. Instead it went to the career graveyard Rod now inhabits. Dame Edna (who was the host of this so-called great performance which included Edna making old and tired cocaine jokes) advised you it was now time for Rod to sing "great songs of the past" -- and no, she didn't mean his 70s hit.
Rod emerged in a tuxedo. He does not wear it well. The black t-shirt and red jacket used at other times in the special hearkened more to Huey Lewis than Rod but at least he appeared comfortable. In a tux, he just looks fat and all the less graceful. If the dash across the stage he did during "Some Guys Have All The Luck" looked klutzy (and it did), that was practically a ballet compared to whatever he thought his body was doing in this segment.
"They Can't Take That From Me" may be the worst performance but it's a hard call. On "For Sentimental Reasons," he sounds strangely like Louis Armstrong. Yet on Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World," Rod sounds like Eartha Kitt coughing up phlegm. He rarely sounded like Rod and he rarely honored a melody. By the time Chrissie Hynde joined him for "As Times Goes By," he seemed like he was doing a send up of a drunken Dean Martin. He continued that throughout his duet with her (one that he had to stop and start over) which is why only Hynde came off well.
If you've make it that far, wait a bit longer. "The First Cut Is The Deepest" is Rod being Rod, Rod doing what made famous in a style that would still make him famous today if he was just starting out. But that's really it. The concert goes on (and on) but there's nothing worth seeing. To mark time, you can count how many times he plays with his hair standing up and how many times he does that while bent at the waist. Tina Turner could offer him some tips on hair pieces that hold up under hot lights but it probably wouldn't do any good. He never learned any dance steps from her -- as he demonstrates throughout but most obviously during "Hot Legs."
"Hot Legs" is an audience sing-a-long. Now those can be quite powerful. It worked in "Reason To Believe" before someone decided the band needed to kick in with a cheesy beat. It works in "The First Cut Is The Deepest." It doesn't work in other songs like "Hot Legs" and "Maggie Mae" where the audience isn't adding to the song, they're carrying it. Singing and stumbling around the stage is apparently a lot of work for Rod, so much so that he turns whole sections of the songs over to the audience.
Night of the Living Rod is a scary sight. That PBS wants to pass off DVDs that are over two years old as PBS product and, worse yet, as a Great Performances is grounds for a class action lawsuit. They have another type of music special they're fond of these days. It's the clip job. Often they get two or three specials out of the same concert. They feature an artist performing a song and then go to another artist and then, months later, if you pay attention, you'll note the 'new' special with pretty much the same performers take place at the same hall with performers wearing the same outfits. It's a way to pay for the expenses of one concert while milking into it several specials. In the mid 90s (1994), Carole King actually gave a concert for PBS. It was later a CD and video, but the concert was seen first on PBS. These days, they take an old Fleetwood Mac concert (like the one for The Dance) that HBO or another cable channel has shown repeatedly and then trot it out as their special -- or worse, trot it out as their special during pledge drives.
Where does the money go at PBS? In 2005, Peter Hart and Steve Rendall (FAIR) noted, "The CPB provides approximately $400 million a year to NPR and PBS -- about 15 percent of the two entities' combined budget." Where does the money go? We're not seeing any chunks of it going for original music production.
At The Huffington Post last week, Eric Williams noted the PBS pledge drives:
It's an amazing bait-and-switch. Every few months, your local PBS station begs you -- and Viewers Like You -- to support their programming for the rest of the year, yet they do this by cramming their schedule with shows which they ONLY air when they're pleading for dough. We get Eagles: Hell Freezes Over and Pink Floyd: Pulse and tributes to doo-wop and the British Invasion. We get Suze Orman and Dr. Wayne Dyer and some guy who'll teach you how to play the piano in an afternoon.
As viewers in some areas get Rod Stewart's nothing special as evidence of the best that PBS can offer (we all got it billed under the Great Performances' umbrella), you really do have to wonder where the money goes. Suze Orman, coming off like a carney barker each pledge drive, should be paying PBS to air her infomercials. We've missed the piano in an afternoon bit on PBS but we have seen one late at night on cable, where it's clearly an infomercial.
So PBS pledge drive programming these days is like a trip to the musical section of your local video rental combined with infomercials. Exactly where does the money go? Regular programming seems to consist of home repair and glorified garage sales. Is this really the best that millions and millions a year can buy? So many questions.
The answer for Rod Stewart's career as an artist should have been to strip down to basics. He didn't do that. He's pursued the Andy Williams route and may it inspire a musical revolt -- the same way some of his work was often groused about by early members of the punk rock movement. But Stewart's not the only one wasting a lot of money and getting applause for just showing up. The same is true of PBS.
Years ago, Rod was sued for palimony by Britt Ekland and Rod, to appease her, and hold on to the money, wrote "You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)." Ekland, mollified, walked away from millions. Rod can't walk away from Britt. He still has to perform the hit song and audience favorite. He does so in the special and, in one embarrassing moment, points to "Celtic" on the back of his jacket and sings "You're the best football team I've ever seen." Britt long ago moved on. Rod's stuck singing the same old song, even when he pairs it with other, even older, songs. He can pretend it's about a football team and maybe even fool himself for a minute or two. PBS can air this corn and maybe fool a viewer or two. But there's no denying that both Rod and PBS are in dire need of reinvention.