I really didn't mean to waste three
hours of a weekend afternoon. Really, I didn't.
I had a lot I wanted to get done
Sunday. There were a lot of little things that had been piling up,
and there were several long-term projects into which I'd hoped to
take a bite. Unfortunately, before I got to any of that I made a
mistake and I clicked on a website. By the time I looked up it was 5
and time to make dinner.
Oops.
My own personal Internet kryptonite
these days, the rabbit hole into which I was pulled this past
weekend, would be “Live at Daryl's House”. I don't know if
you're aware of this site, but Daryl Hall (of Hall & Oates)
hosted a web series for around 10 years where he'd welcome musical
stars to his home, make dinner for them, and then jam with
he & his band. Videos from various performances are all over the
web, and if you're anything like me, once you watch the first you
keep clicking on the next until you realize the afternoon has
disappeared and your wife is wondering if you're still breathing.
Once again, oops.
There are two reasons that I get so
into the clips. The first is that the musicianship is impeccable.
The people who play on the show, both the regular band and the
guests, are at the top of their game. They can play just about any
musical genre and play it well. And that ties into the second
reason—they seem to have a BLAST doing it. Whether they're doing a
Hall & Oates song, a song by the guest, or just some old
chestnut, the musicians are all smiling. And when they hit a
particular groove or know that they've nailed a piece of work, the
joy they share is just palpable.
It's just fun to watch.
I got hooked because I came across a
performance from a decade ago from one of my current favorite groups,
Chromeo. At the time, they were just unknown funksters from
Montreal, but when you hear them join the band to play Boz Scaggs'
“Lowdown”, you just know they were talented even then--
Of course, they weren't too bad on a
Hall & Oates classic, either--
Actually, if you watch that video
through to the end, you can get a sense of just how much fun they
were having.
I could recommend just about every
video you can find from the show, and thereby find myself getting
sucked into another rabbit hole, but there are two more I'd like to
put out there. The first, a performance of “Life's Been Good”
with Joe Walsh, shows how they can tackle any kind of musical style--
And then pulling a 180, they also show
how they can change up a Hall & Oates classic in this performance
with Rumer--
That's just a (very) small sample of
what you can find floating around the internet from the show. That's
not even getting into the stuff they did with the O'Jays, or Meyer
Hawthorne, or Train, or Aloe Blacc, or Rob Thomas, or Cheap Trick,
or...
Well, you get the idea. And maybe,
just maybe, can now understand how I lost three hours of my life
Sunday afternoon.
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