sweat on the lawn

Eric Burdon & War - “Paint It Black”

Every time the trap drummer looks up, he is ordering Eric to “Get it, Eric.” A drummer wearing a paisley shirt; why wouldn’t you make a kaleidoscope background out of him? The size of his ‘fro is proportionate to his gangliness such that his implementation of the trad grip tells us that he learned drums from his dad’s friend at church, who once kept kids off the streets (the drummer thinks his dad was one of those kids, but in fact the guy and his dad were in some shit together and his dad saved the guy’s neck, which is why he’s doing the dad the favor of teaching the kid drums), but now mostly makes lemonade and is really polite to ladies.

I mind the absence of tambourine in this no more than the inclusion of flute and harmonica. Also, apparently flute makes harmonica ok as long as they’re playing at the same time?

Who says you can’t get down in cut-offs as long as your shirt matches your amplifier?

The conga player stands when he plays his cowbell.

The full frontal nudity of the organ.

You know that time Santana made a third duets album out of spite? This is why. And it’s only the first song of four from a 41-minute performance on German TV. That said, nothing can save “Spill the Wine,” not even his pouch that I wish was full of condoms he would throw out at the end. So skip that, and start here. Saxophone’s incoming!

Eric Burdon is gonna be doing really great when Paul Rudd is doing poorly enough to star in his biopic. If only this scene would replace “Spill the Wine” with “Play the Bass.”

Has no one else realized that Jonathan Pryce is the third Davies?