Have I ever linked to a video of Happy Rhodes?
I think this is how I heard about her: there was a post on MetaFilter about a photographer's work. They were the kind of photos I classify as "better than what I can do, but not of personal interest." Which, by the way, is how I classify 49% of the world. The other 50.99% is "better than what I can do, and Rather Intriguing Actually."
It's the extra 2% that makes all the difference. Just like with milk.
The fraction left over is just good timing. I answer tiny questions and people say, "God, you're smart!" But it just looks that way because of the obscenely huge bonus points people assign to unexpected trivia. My brain is full of crap that just sits there, waiting to played in a Coup Fourre for a triple score. (Can you tell that I finally got Mike to play Mille Bornes?)
And however smart I really am, I'm still going to sit here on the sofa and inwardly abuse myself off and on all night for not using the word "sartorial" enough.
So, there was this post about photos, and then someone said, "hey, the person who is featured in all of these photos is a singer and has a video here," and someone else said, "gosh, her voice is freakin' deep," and someone linked somewhere and somewhere and somewhere, and someone commented somewhere else, "hey, have you heard of Happy Rhodes?"
Because Happy Rhodes has, like, a seventy octave range. And maybe that's hyperbole, or maybe that's me showing off that I don't know anything about music.
But I know what I like, and now I'm a fan.
(What is the state of Mille Bornes online, anyway? I can't even find the little PC game I used to play the snot out of when I first came online. There's this, but I don't like executable downloads that aren't on the big sites and whose own sites have gone belly-up.)
Happy Rhodes also does an enjoyable rendition of Space Oddity, and I'm not just saying that because I watched Mr Deeds recently and it's in my ear.
Maybe some of you, also playing for the same big bonus points, have worked out the title of this post. (Congrats! You get 4000 extra points to be redeemed at the usual spot! If you're like me, it's the closet of empty, self-satisfied sighs on the right.) If so, the fact that she covers Bowie is a weensy bit interesting because I have somewhere, on ratty VHS, original VJ Mark Goodman doing the MTV news, probably in 1984? And he's talking about how Nick Rhodes is all set to play David Bowie in a movie about Bowie's life.
I watched the video (a six-hour chunk of MTV, made for me by my teenage crush Brad when he was on the side of the road that got cable and I wasn't) so many times, I can almost quote what Goodman says. "The project had been in the works for awhile, but it was Rhodes' uncanny resemblance to Bowie that got the film off the ground." (Emphasis Goodman's)
And that's the early 80s right there, isn't it? "David Bowie wears makeup. Nick Rhodes wears makeup. They're like twins!"
(Happy Rhodes, who doesn't know who I am and did not pay me money or cheap compliments to endorse her music, can be found at AuntieSocialMusic.com. However, it's worth a visit to CDBaby just for this quote: "Pleasantly progressive, yet thoughtful - Kate Bush meets David Sylvian in a dark alley and they both beat up a very angry Melanie.")
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