BEN FOLDS

Beyond Brick

Or

Why you should stop everything you are doing and give Ben Folds all of your money (Or at least buy one of his CD’s)

If all that you know about Ben Folds is the song Brick, well that’s ok.  I won’t chastise you for that. I mean he doesn’t twerk or make crazy music videos. He doesn’t dress oddly, there are no sex scandals, He might smoke pot, but no one is going to cut themselves over it. So really, it makes sense to me that you haven’t heard much about him.

Maybe you have seen Ben Folds on the Sing Off, and thought that guy is smart and seems to know a lot about music.  But Ben Folds is so much more than that.  He is a rocking dude. He is ironically funny and he makes relatable music.   The man has no problem with swearing and will drop an f bomb right in the middle of a beautiful fucking song.

If that turned you off, or made you no longer interested, then you are silly.

So where do I begin on this journey of how cool Ben Folds is.  I mean I am not going to give you a biography of his career. I mean that would take a while plus I assume most of you have at least heard of him.  I really just want to point out some of the super cool things that I don’t think you realize he has done; or may have forgotten.

Really quickly before anyone gets confused go back and read What is That Band Called, to discover the quirky irony of Ben Folds Five’s name.   I don’t want to ruin it for you, but if you continue on  without knowing you might get lost.

Brick

I am going to start here, otherwise, taking you beyond it then bringing it up would seem weird.  So we will start here, with the song that made Folds, and his group Ben Folds Five a somewhat household name.  I mean plenty of soccer moms got down to that song. Right?

But I don’t know if everyone really knew what the song was about. Sure the video gave some glimpses into what was going on.  But for those of you that do not know. The song was a very somber look at abortion.  Folds  high school girlfriend actually went through an abortion and the songs verses were written by Folds and they reflect the events as he saw them.  The chorus was written by the bands drummer; which helps the song have that twinge of ambiguity and disconnection that the song needed to be an adult contemporary hit.  

This song made a good portion of his fans feel like he sold out, because realistically the band was a sort of punk rock/piano band.  And this song took them way out of their element. Folds once mentioned that they couldn’t even fit the song onto their set lists because it had such a different vibe.

So here it is for you a nice melancholy way to start today…….

Army (Live)

In 1999 the Ben Folds Five released the song  Army.

The song was a straight up tell all written by Ben Folds after he had lost a scholarship and considered joining the Army. If you have heard the song then you know how his dad felt about it.

Folds has said that the only thing that he made up in the song was about him having a mullet. He apparently never had a mullet.

So the reason why this song is so cool when performed live is that in the studio version the band brought in a horn section. The horn section is a fun awesome part in the song.  When the song is performed live, there typically is no horn section so Folds divides the audience up and teaches them how to do it.  He sometimes refers to them as bitches and whores which is a play on the phrase “bitchin horn section”. 

So that is the moment that I want you to see and be a part of….

Bitches Ain’t Shit

If you are following along with me in time, you would know that I enjoy all types of music, and you know that somehow I was pulled into the west side gangsta rap side of things for a while.

No one can deny that Dr Dre’s album The Chronic was an awesome fucking album, I mean seriously this was an awesome album.  At the end of the CD was this sorta secret song after the outro.  It was an awesome song talking about well, bitches and hoes, (sorry ladies, not my words, I prefer cooks and maids, but .._)  

So anyways Dre and his pals made a great song that other rappers have covered and remade and had their fun with.Check out Dre's version Right Here!!

Ben Folds decided, why not do it with a more serious tone, which he did and the song actually was so well received that  it made its way onto the billboard hot 100. 

The beauty of the song is that Ben does it as just a straight fucking song.  Melodically and harmoniously it is a beautiful track.  I mean if you did not listen to the actual lyrics, you might think you are listening to something completely different.

  So here it is  live and uncut…

William Shatner Has Been

If you have never heard William Shatner’s work as a music artist, you are missing a big treat.   

William Shatner has his own musical career that has spawned  like 7 different albums.  And I am not lying they are all good in their own way. Mostly spoken word  and oddness  but it is seriously good fucking stuff.

The beauty of Captain Kirk’s 2004 album, and why I am talking about it now is that Ben Folds produced it and helped him put the whole thing together. I mean Shatner and Folds wrote all of the songs together and everything.  Ben plays on all of the tracks.

The album had duets and guest artists amuck. And was critically acclaimed.  It made it’s way to number 22 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.   That means it was hot shit.  AllMusic.com gives the album 4 out of 5 stars.

So I give you my favorite track off the album, a fan made video of  William Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s Common People; which features guest vocals by one of my favorite singers of all time- Joe Jackson.

Over the Hedge

Ben Folds provided all the singing in the movie, I say it like that because the actual score was written by someone else.  But Folds has 5 songs on the soundtrack ; including his cover of Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash, and a rewriting of his song Rockin’ the Suburbs

I don’t know how it came to be that Folds got to work on this, but I think it had something to do with the fact that William Shatner is in the movie.  I wish I could tell you which collaboration came first  but it seems as if they were almost simultaneous.

Either way, this is my favorite movie to watch when the kids want to watch a cartoon.  It is not the greatest movie in the world, but soundtrack wise it is top notch baby.

I don’t know maybe it’s weird that he did a soundtrack for a kids album, but I think it’s fucking cool as hell. It gives me a way to interact with my kids Sure he bastardized Rockin’ the Suburbs, and took all the swear words out.  But now I can enjoy Ben Folds with my kids and not get glared at by other people.  

So below is the PG version of Rockin’ the Suburbs, check out the R one here.

The Leaked version of Way to Normal

In this day and age, every artist over protects their album. Ben folds gets that but he found a different way to protect his work.

In  September of 2008 Ben Folds released the album Way to Normal, and it was one hell of a good album, but in July of that year Ben Folds released a fake leak of the album.  The songs had the same titles, and Folds was singing them.

I mean, come on that is fucking genius. Eminem’s crew doesn’t even think of shit like that. I mean who has time to make not 1 but 2 albums especially when one is nothing but fake.   They wrote all the songs in days recorded it in 1 day and then leaked it.

And the best part was that the shit was good.  I mean so good that Folds would perform some of the fake songs while on tour his fake version of Bitch Went Nutz actually got popular amongst fans.

Maybe I am a dork of a fan, but I think it’s cool as hell. So here is the fake followed by the real.  The real one is a shitty video, but it has the full opening which is key to what the song is about

The Fake Version

The Real Version

Chatroulette Live

If you are unfamiliar with Chatroulette consider yourself somewhat lucky.  Basically Chatroulette is a chatting service but it works via webcam.  So you just log on and push talk and end up talking to a random person without ever knowing who it is that you are going to be talking to.

So there was this dude named Merton who would sit on Chatroulette and play the piano for people, and he would just improvise things for people.

People initially thought that Merton was Ben Folds, but in reality he wasn’t, and at one point Merton and Ben Folds appeared in a video together.

So on a few occasions at concerts Ben would hook up his laptop to the giant video screen behind him, and he and the audience would have an impromptu jam session with whoever came up via the Chatroulette feed.

It is awesome as hell…

University A Capella

Ben Folds heard  a group performing his song brick via A Capella and realized that there were a lot of people doing his music  in A Capella versions.

So he went out and found  a bunch of them and put them together to create a CD of all his music done A Capella. His love for A Capella music and this album got him is job on The Sing Off .

To top it off Folds himself performed a few songs a la A Capella  so the next and last thing that I have for you is Ben Folds backed by himself performing Effington.

I hope you have learned a thing or two and I hope you have learned to love Ben Folds the way that I do.  He really is a talented dude. Look him up, I swear it is totally worth it.

Peace Out.