It’s been far too long since I posted a smallerpictures video.
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When I was twenty years old, I got into Hospital Radio. There followed three not-so-glorious years of trailing round the Royal Berkshire Hospital orthopaedic wards meeting elderly ladies awaiting hip replacements and incapacitated bikers after work on a Friday, and then spending my Saturday mornings playing a curious mixture of Meat Loaf and Val Doonican on the request show. My co-host and I memorised the jingles and took it in turns to quote them aloud to each other while the microphone was off, which came in very handy on the day the cart machine broke and we managed to fulfil our quota of three an hour with a strictly a capella performance. I got to know the tricks, the techniques, the art of sequencing – which records to avoid (‘Spirit in the Sky’, ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’, ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’) and the ones that we’d basically worn out due to endless re-requests (‘Release Me’, ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Distant Drums’ and that bloody Titanic song). And I was living at home and had no social life to speak of, so it filled up the weekends.
It all ended in tears, with me no longer on speaking terms with the committee – there were faults on both sides, me being young and outspoken while they were apathetic and inept – but boy, did I listen to a lot of music during that run. And I associate Canned Heat with that time, having acquired this particular song on a driving compilation I’d bought while I was still a sixth former (and can no longer find, which is annoying because it was one of my better Various Artists collections), but finding it was a decent way to fill five minutes (extended version) while you went to the loo. And the first thing that occurred to me when I heard it was wait a minute, what’s Kermit the Frog doing singing this?
Soundalike gags are nothing new. There was speculation years ago that Kermit might actually have been Michael Stipe under an assumed name (it’s probably the other way round, actually, but you get the idea). And I remember hearing Macy Gray singing ‘I Try’ for the first time, and – well, have a listen.
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You see what I mean, right?
YouTube has an amusing video that sequences images from ‘Going Up The Country’ – Canned Heat’s other household hit – to stills from Muppet films, shows and album covers. I managed to go one better and do a reasonable lipdub – the 1979 feature film, with its road trip theme, being an obvious choice. This was uncomplicated in approach, if fiddly in execution to actually put together: finding appropriate imagery from the film to go along with the psychedelic blues was fairly easy (there are some priceless visual gags, and I got lucky with Rowlf and his harmonica). For the vocals, it was just a question of going through and finding mouth movements that more or less tied in with Alan Wilson’s vocals, and then moving back and forth a microsecond for the best fit possible. (I’m still convinced that the upload is slightly out, although my original is in sync.)
Oh, and see The Muppets. It’s worth it for 80s Robot alone…
Brian of Morbius 