Opening Medley - Our Hit Parade March 2010 Edition

Here is the opening medley of the March 2010 edition of Our Hit Parade. I was watching those terrifyingly bad videos Whoopie Goldberg made for Poise Pads. It is was if she was just put in a costume and told to improv. Not her forte, really. I also thought it would be funny to begin with a very serious Leonard Cohen song. Nothing like the mixture of Leonard Cohen with Neal Medlyn in a fire costume consisting of a homemade flame hat and a gold lame unitard to start an evening off right!

Kenny

Telephone Hour - Telephone

So this was the opening number of the February edition of Our Hit Parade at Joe's Pub. I don't know how this idea came to me. All I know is I wish we had a huge budget so we could have had the original Bye Bye Birdie set with Bridget, Neal and me on different levels and talking on real old-fashioned telephones. I have dreams my friends. In the end we had to settle for two cellphones and some imagination. It was a good opening to a pretty fantastic show. I will be posting the other videos as a countdown to our next show on March 24th. I will be announcing some special guests also! and they are special!

Kenny

This is Downtown!

I'll be posting the videos from the Our Hit Parade that took place on wednesday but if you're trigger-happy you can find them at www.youtube.com/ourhitparade

It was a GOOD one!

Kenny

Amber Martin - Consider Me Gone - Our Hit Parade

This was the number one country song of the month at last month's edition of Our Hit Parade. Amber Martin, with PJ Deboy on guitar, who you might recognize for his work in Shortbus, killed it...Reba McIntyre just keeps putting out hit and hit and hit. She really is multi-talented. Broadway, television and now a number one country hit. again....

I really kinda love this song and I love Amber and Paul's rendition.

Kenny

Hard - Bridget Everett - Our Hit Parade

I haven't really warmed to Rihanna's album. Everything just seems like the energy has been sucked out of it. Tempos are a tad slower than the songs seem to want to be. But this cover of Hard made me like this song. It happens so often that covers allow me to see in a song something I missed whilst listening to the original version. Add in a couple of kids and Bridget Everett and you have a potent mix.

When we came up with the idea for Our Hit Parade the recession had just hit and we thought back to the depression when productions would have six or seven shows a day. We, of course, are at the ready to produce under that rubric at any time! But in the meantime, it warms my heart that so many young teen and preteen singers have graced the stage of Our Hit Parade. Now all we need is a live horse or two and Ziegfield Follies here we come!!!

Kenny

Neal Medlyn - Fireflies - Our Hit Parade

I really hate audience participation as an audience member. Too much stress that a comic full of acid is going to unleash on me. But when audience participation really works, like it does here, it is kinda magical. Neal brings a woman up to stage with a name that I can't even begin to write down, and has her read a script, lay with him and be on a live video feed. She is so good at her part, but you still can feel the joy of her being an innocent on stage.

I'm not a huge fan of the song, but this performance makes me like it a whole lot more. On the recording, the electronic production gets in the way of me having an emotional reaction to it. Here stripped down to piano (oh right, that's me playing piano!) and Neal, it moves me.

And I can't tell you the joy I felt the first time I saw a firefly! I was probably 33, the age that Jesus died, when I first saw one. We didn't have them in Los Angeles or San Francisco. They really are awe inspiring.

Kenny

Harmonic Possession - Hey Soul Sister - Our Hit Parade

When my friend Pailo drunkely agreed to sing at Our Hit Parade I was shocked. Not because I didn't think he would do a great job, but shocked that he agreed to sing in public. Then we he got together with Adam, Eytan and Carmine and said they were going to do a barbershop quartet number, I was dubious.

Well let me just say, these guys pulled it off. Not only did they turn a fairly awful song into something listenable, but they did a cute skit to go along with it. This kind of performance is what Our Hit Parade is all about. You can almost picture this is black and white coming out of your tiny little television in the 50s. So guys, you rocked it!

Kenny