“It’s messy and it’s big, and it’s loud and ridiculous,” he promises. Of course, this being a Flanders show, you can expect madcap mayhem and an innuendo or two. I want something big, colourful and theatrical that’s not a prestige Netflix drama.” That’s certainly what I wanted to see coming out of two years of lockdown. “Live theatre offers razzle-dazzle right in front of your eyes. I mean, what’s better for a disaster parody than torrential rain? We’re trying to book the earthquake back too.”Ī good time is what we all need right now, he notes.
“ SS Metaphor is funny enough that, even if we were getting rained on, you’ll have a good time. “Anytime I’ve had to do theatre outdoors, unless it’s entirely drenching, you go on with the show,” he says. Set on a cruise ship that’s been at sea for a year following some unmentioned global disaster that’s made it unsafe to land, the show is set to reopen the Malthouse Theatre’s outdoor stage as its first major production.įlanders chuckles at the irony of the inopportune weather. Jones, “An Evening With Silk Sonic” will take you there.Staring out the window at the lashing rain and stormy grey skies of Melbourne’s ‘summer’, it seems like perfect timing to talk to queer theatre-maker extraordinaire Ash Flanders about his new cabaret show SS Metaphor. Whether you want to rock the boat or rock your baby, ride the love train or the love roller coaster, or boogie with love Jones or me and Mrs.
Wisely, at just a half hour in length, the album doesn’t outstay its welcome, and although not every song is great, the vibe carries through from end to end - and once it’s over there’s no way you’re not playing it again. Paak - a blazing drummer as well as a strong rapper and singer - recorded an imaginative all-covers EP in 2013 called “Cover Art.” A ’70s soul shake is also due to Dernst Emile II (aka D’Mile), who co-produced the album with Mars, co-wrote every song and plays multiple instruments. Paak were born a decade after this music was dominating FM radio, it’s clearly in their blood: Mars, who created a vin- tage-sounding classic with Mark Ronson in 2014 with “Uptown Funk,” probably played a lot of songs from the period as a kid in his family’s band, and. Similarly, the groove veers into the ’80s on occasion - there are a couple of funky or flute-y dashes of vintage Michael Jackson.Įven though both Mars and. Paak-powered “777” - naturally, the album’s seventh track - largely because he raps most of the way through it the music is a straight Gap Band funk. The only song that doesn’t sound like a blast from a Rhino Records compilation or some obsessive British crate-digger’s playlist is the. Inevitably, there’s a bedroom ballad with some heavy female breathing and pillow talk (the steamy “After Last Night”).
#TIME STOPPER MOVIE FULL#
The songs span jams like the rollerena anthem “Skate” (released last summer with a very summery roller-skating-themed video) and several slow-burners, including “Leave the Door Open” and the closing “Blast Off,” which includes lyrics as period-specific as the music: “Let’s tiptoe to a magical place / Blast off and kiss the moon tonight / And watch the world go crazy from outer space.” Other priceless one-liners include “In a room full of dimes, you’d be a hundred dollars” and “You smell better than a barbecue” (both from “Skate”).
There are even a few cameos from one of the era’s originators, P-Funk bassist and iconic solo artist Bootsy Collins. Paak - have taken the concept to a whole new realm with “An Evening With Silk Sonic,” a wink-laden blast of early ’70s soul that they’ve launched like a contemporary project, complete with a smash debut single, “Leave the Door Open” (performed at the Grammy Awards earlier this year, it went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 in April).Īnyone who knows or loves early 1970s R&B will have a goofy grin on their face throughout this entire album, which plays out like an awesome game of spot-the-reference: You’ll find nods to songs like “Jungle Boogie,” “Fire” and “Love Rollercoaster” groups like the O’Jays, the Chi-Lites, the Sty- listics, the Ohio Players, the Gap Band and Kool & the Gang angelic backing vocals, ludicrously lush strings and horns, baby-I’m-down-on-my-knees testifying wacka-wacka guitars and tinkling glockenspiels. The throwback album is a monumentally more difficult thing to pull off: The artist has to follow the above guidelines for a standard album’s length without the conceit - which is hard enough to get away with for the length of a song - growing, well, old.Īll of which is a long-winded way of leading up to the fact that Silk Sonic - aka multiplatinum pop-R&B singer Bruno Mars and rapper Anderson.