How To Speak Hip

April 1, 2008 1:24 PM

How To Speak Hip with Del Close and John Brent
posted by Del Far (27 comments total)

Del Close is great. I used to read the Wasteland comic he co-wrote with John Ostrander for DC, pre-Vertigo, and it blew l'il Shepherd's mind.

He bequeathed his skull to a theatre group to use as Yorick in performances of Hamlet. Pure class. Even though they apparently wound up using some other skull instead.
posted by Shepherd at 1:33 PM on April 1, 2008

Yeah the fact that he donated his skull always makes me wonder what awesome things I could do with my body when I die.
posted by Del Far at 1:43 PM on April 1, 2008

Cool, thanks...I think I first heard of this LP via Brian Wilson being a big fan of it while making Pet Sounds.
posted by anazgnos at 2:11 PM on April 1, 2008

Sounds like first you need to figure out how to get your skull actually donated.
posted by mumkin at 2:12 PM on April 1, 2008

double
posted by caddis at 2:13 PM on April 1, 2008

wow, this may be the greatest thing I've ever heard. anyone know of a list of songs that sample this thing?
posted by shmegegge at 2:18 PM on April 1, 2008

Oops, sorry, if it helps at all there is also a new biography on Del Close called The Funniest One in the Room: The Lives and Legends of Del Close also an interview with the author.
posted by Del Far at 2:23 PM on April 1, 2008

Oooh, I was thinking of scaring up some FPP having to do with Del Close or Lord Buckley. Thanks!
posted by not_on_display at 2:27 PM on April 1, 2008

Bob Harris (whose Prisoner of Trebekistan was mentioned here yesterday) reminisces about Close and plugs the new biography.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 2:42 PM on April 1, 2008

I just went crate digging today to find fun samples to scratch, I come back and MeFi... provides.
posted by phrontist at 2:46 PM on April 1, 2008

oh, i LOVE the widget. Terrible coolness!!!!!11

**I wish i could listen to tektonik on it** (flails arms about)
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 3:01 PM on April 1, 2008

Can someone parse the obfuscated javascript and give us a straight mp3 link?
posted by phrontist at 3:49 PM on April 1, 2008

I'm not sure which thread would be more appropriate to make this comment, but sorta following [son] Q's lead, I was opened this clip from the Tecktonik thread (with the volume down), and the main link from this thread with the narration, and it worked really way too well.

Not sure what that means, exactly.
posted by quin at 3:56 PM on April 1, 2008

Direct MP3 Links:

Side One
Side Two
posted by reishus at 4:21 PM on April 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dig it baby.
posted by snsranch at 4:54 PM on April 1, 2008

Dig it, baby.

Dig, it baby.

Dig it. BABY!
posted by snsranch at 4:56 PM on April 1, 2008

"In other words the phrase, 'I dig,' not only means 'I understand' but 'I am a special sort of person who understands in a very special way.'' Funny.
posted by salvia at 4:58 PM on April 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Anyone else from Toronto familiar with the name Geets Romo? The Toronto Geets has a wikipedia entry of sorts.

I guess he swiped the name from this, elder, Geets; though he made the most of it, appearing as Mctavish McRomo, if memory serves, and other variations. He and his straight man Pete made mornings in 1970's Toronto more enjoyable than they would have been otherwise.

Any more Geets trivia out there? Is the original Geets on the "Talk Hip" record, or does he go further back?
posted by not_that_epiphanius at 5:05 PM on April 1, 2008

Dig yourself, man.
posted by Wolof at 5:21 PM on April 1, 2008

If you dig this stuff, check into Rhino Records' (now out of print) Beat Generation 3-CD box set.

Wild Bohemian
Tower Records
Discogs
Music Match

In addition to exerpts from How To Speak Hip, there's music, prose, poetry, comedy, and noise from Lord Buckley, Langston Hughes, William Burroughs, Dizzy Gillespie, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, Slim Gaillard, Charlie Parker, Allen Ginsberg, Edd Byrnes, Lenny Bruce, Tom Waits, Jack Kerouac, Gerry Mulligan, Ken Nordine, and Perry Como(!?).

For hip jive at its most impenetrable, take Manhattan Fable by Babs Gonzales. If you can follow it, you've earned your degree from how-to-speak-hip school.

Along the way, Charles Kuralt and Howard K. Smith try to make sense of it all for the squares at home.

Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta get in the wind. . .
-
posted by Herodios at 7:38 PM on April 1, 2008

schmegegge: I only know of this little thing...
posted by jinjo at 7:51 PM on April 1, 2008

Del Close provided the voice-over for the opening credits of the Upright Citizens Brigade show. In the Pro Thunderball episode they have a decrepit stadium named in his honor.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:29 PM on April 1, 2008

This makes me really miss all those cool Lenny Bruce albums I used to have. I guess I still talk a bit like this, but then again, I'm a jazz player. It just sort of happens. (Man, I must be old.) Great post Del Far! Thanks also to resihus for the MP3s.
posted by Seekerofsplendor at 10:48 PM on April 1, 2008

I guess I still talk a bit like this, but then again, I'm a jazz player.

I do it too. Half my vocabulary is on this CD.

*bongos*
posted by Wolof at 11:18 PM on April 1, 2008

schmegegge: The Orb's remix of Semisonic's Secret Smile uses the "...stop beating that gong, man. It's a drag; very hard on the nerves." quote.
posted by sleslie at 4:27 AM on April 2, 2008

What a great site. I think I learned something, dig? That was probably so un-hip to say.....
posted by lookoutkitty at 6:23 AM on April 2, 2008

I met Del Close back in 95 or 96 I think at the Big Stinkin' International Improv Fest and saw him many a time at improv meetups after that. To this day he remains the only person who has ever walked in, sat at my table, ordered drinks and then left me with the bill without asking.

very cool cat most of the times I met him, just downright bizarre another...
posted by MildlyDisturbed at 8:05 AM on April 2, 2008