you looped it, you looped it

A few music-related pleasures from the last couple of days:

*Being on an airplane, watching VH1 Classic, getting excited because they were showing something credited as 3rd Bass's "Gas Face"--then realizing that it was actually "Pop Goes the Weasel." Which was not a disappointment anyway.

*Kiki and Herb's show at Joe's Pub last night: Kiki about seven sheets to the wind when it started and considerably more when it finished, since she's gotten into the habit of calling for a refill by banging her mic against the glass. "Everything Happens to Me" was the first actual cabaret-chanteuse-era-type song I've ever heard them do--there was another June Christy joke later in the evening, too (I first heard that song via Christy's recording with Stan Kenton). Nothing too surprising in the repertoire otherwise (I think every time I've ever seen them they've done Butt Trumpet's "I'm Ugly And I Don't Know Why"), but a few inspired alterations. "Space Oddity" got some emendations ("Tell my wife--internationally acclaimed and extremely beautiful supermodel Iman--I love her very much..."). And the actual focus of this particular show was Kiki in an expansive storytelling mood: there was a very, very long anecdote about her affair with Nancy Pelosi's father back in the '50s, as well as an attempt to tell a story about Billie Holiday that got derailed about four times before Kiki brushed it aside with "Billie Holiday: a really fun gal, ladiesngennamen," and got on with the next song.

*Listening to the woman who drove our cab home singing along, lustily, with the Kinks' "Lola" on the car radio, and flashing back to singing it at karaoke with Maria and Sara at EMP last year.