“Pardon! Bonjour! Fromage!” (photo by Rafe Baron.)

One balmy summer’s eve a couple years ago, Herr Titler came into my life. I was standing in the wings of an ancient Brooklyn theater, reeling in the chaos of Amanda Palmer’s boisterous Fuck The Back Row film/music/theater revue night, when I beheld a broad-shouldered figure in a slinky cocktail gown and perilous high heels. With his sultry voice, his sharply parted/pomaded hair and villainous moustache, Titler was simultaneously demure yet forceful, domineering yet somehow… dainty. I tell ya, he KILLED it that night.

Having basked in his commanding presence, I have trouble understanding what zealots on either side of the ongoing Dr. Steel vs Dr. Horrible debate are getting their jodhpurs in such a twist over! For my money, Titler is all anyone could ever want in a singing musical madman, with the unexpected (but welcome) bonus of a truly fetching décolletage.

Comrades! For your consideration:

While it’s my sincere hope that the wondrous Coilhouse Gushfest: Getting to Know You continues unabated, I can’t keep sitting on my hands with this one. Grace Jones has just released a new video for “Corporate Cannibal”, the first single off her forthcoming album, Hurricane (which features collaboration with Tricky, Brian Eno, and others). May Day is more heart-stoppingly badass than ever before:

(Via MusicSlut and Ectomo.)

Is she not fierce?! Like some creepy UrSkek, come to inform us of the Great Conjunction. And the lyrics… checkit, they’re all Free and Accepted n’ shiz:

Employer of the year
Grandmaster of fear
My blood flows satanical
Mechanical, masonical
And chemical… habitual

Jones performing at Meltdown in London last month.

Rawr. As previously mentioned on CH, Ms. Jones is my choice for It Girl of the 80s. Hell, let’s make her It Girl for ’08, as well. She’s sixty, she’s sexy, she’s scary as hell, and we should all bow before her fabulousness.

Wow.

Just, wow.

I, all three of us, we’ve been reading your introductions, and we owe you all a big , squishy, electrified Thank You. When we asked you to tell us about yourselves we were certainly hoping to lure some of you from the shadows, if only for a moment, but we did not expect this. One hundred forty three [143] replies and counting. A few of those are ours but the bulk is you, in all your international, multi-faceted splendor.

So thank you for shedding your veils of anonymity and taking the time to tell us and each other a bit about you. I’ll be here, gleaming with pride and reading away. And if you’re reading this and have yet to participate, do! Nudes OK.

You’d think that a violinist and theremin wrangler would be more comfortable with the high-pitched, squeaky side of the musical spectrum than anything else, wouldn’t you? In my case, that just ain’t so. Turn down the treble, gimme BOOM, THUD, CRASH. Establish a strong pulse and make sure there’s plenty of low end. The deeper that connection with the rhythm section, the more blissed out I’m gonna be. Bang the drums.

I bring this up because May 16th is the whelping day of one of my favorite peeps in de’ whole wide world, Brian Viglione. He also happens to be one of my all-time favorite drummers.

Photo by Lauren Goldberg.

I first met da’ Vig and his brilliant partner in cabaret crime, Amanda Palmer, many years ago in the basement of some tiny Boston club. I’m not sure Brian was even of legal drinking age back then. My first time watching the Dresden Dolls perform (for an audience of maybe 15 people) I was thinking dang… that kid plays like the radioactive lovechild of Elvin Jones and Brendan Canty! How is that even possible?!

Amanda and Brian both seemed larger than life. I remember turning to one of my own bandmates and asking “is it just me, or does it feel like they should be playing a much bigger room?” Funny how things go…

Brian tearing it up at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, 2006. (The Dolls are playing a sold-out show at the Filmore in SF on Sunday. I’ll be joining them on a song. Really looking forward to it, as always. Whether they’re playing some dive bar, a swanky supper club, or opening for NIN, it’s always hugely satisfying to work with these guys.)

In honor of the birthday boy, in no particular order, here is some choice footage and brief blurbage of 20 (give or take a few… I sort of lost count) bliss-inducing percussionists who have, each in their own way, inspired me to be not a only a better musician, but a better human being. I know several of them are on Viggie’s list as well. Many happy returns, good buddy.

I didn’t even know there was such a thing as industrial music when I stumbled onto Janet’s Rhythm Nation 1814 film in my pre-teens, but I knew that I’d made a very important discovery. Later there would be the mix tapes and the radio shows that exposed me to my favorite music in its true form, but until then, isolated in suburbia and still learning English, Janet’s video was my first glimpse into the aesthetics of my favorite musical genre.

Having re-watched Rhythm Nation today, I have come to a very important conclusion: Janet Jackson is even more ÜBER than I initially thought. Here’s why:

1. The uniforms! God, the uniforms. Those gloves with the riveted metallic plates? Hot.
2. “We are a nation with no geographic boundaries, bound together by our beliefs.” NSK State, anyone? Laibach, take note: Janet beat you to it by 4 years.
3. The precise, mechanical dancing that looks like military formations puts the type of industrial dancing that you see at today’s clubs to shame.
4. The entire clip takes place in a steamy factory that recalls Test Dept’s Total State Machine.
5. Despite the strong percussion and electronic elements, I’d be pushing it if I claimed that this awesome song was industrial. But you know what? Janet created this socially-conscious record on her terms, in the face of a record company pressuring her to only sing about love and relationships. Who knows what this could have been, had there not been that pressure at all?