Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Rockstars Have Kidnapped My Son!

I watched the brilliant Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous again the other day. Tell me if this isn't one of the best music scenes in any movie?



Elton John - Tiny Dancer.mp3
Buy: Madman Across the Water (1971, reissued 1996)
Edit: if you listened to this track before 3:15 pm Eastern time it was actually a Ben Folds version. My bad! The link has been fixed.

(There is also a hysterical version of Dave Grohl doing this song where he talks about the movie. Its floating around the internets somewhere, so get your google on.)

What many people do not know is that the actor who plays Larry Fellows, the bass player for the fictional band Stillwater, is Mark Kozelek, a very talented musician in his own right. You can hear his distinctive vocals when he starts the "Handing tickets out for God..." lyric in the "Tiny Dancer" scene. Kozelek first formed the band Red House Painters in the early 90s, but after having label problems, he eventually released a solo album in 2000. He resurfaced with the band Sun Kil Moon in 2003, and released what many of my rock snob friends consider the best album of the decade, Ghosts of the Great Highway. In 2008 they released April, which landed on many critic's year-end top ten lists.

I wonder how Kozelek ended up with the roll on Almost Famous? Is he friends with Cameron Crowe? Is Crowe a fan of his music? If anyone knows the answer to these questions, please let me know.

Sun Kil Moon - Salvador Sanchez.mp3
Buy: Ghosts of the Great Highway (2003, this one is the 2007 edition with bonus tracks)

5 comments:

smcnally said...

this is Ben Folds' version of the Elton John song, btw. Very cool.

John Fruscante (RHCP) did a version of this solo on the Mother's Milk tour. It took several moments before I figured out what the hell he was playing.

Rockstar Aimz said...

Yeah, I buggered that one up. Just fixed it a few minutes ago. Thanks for pointing it out though.

Nicole said...

Mark Kozalek is amazing!

i also enjoyed his small role in "Shopgirl"..the Steve Martin/Claire Danes/Jason Schwartzman film from 2005 (i think it was '05)..a couple of his own songs are a part of the movie.

Highly recommended!

Nazz Nomad said...

We knew this really short chick (she wasn't a midget or a drarf, she was just really short, like 4' 8".
She was also a stripper.
We called her ...

"Tiny Dancer".

Unknown said...

yeah, as far as I know Crowe was a fan and starting giving Mark a couple small parts. I agree with your snob friends about Ghosts of the Great Highway, one of the best albums ever. April was my fave of last year. He has a CD out under his own name of his live tour in support of April- many songs from that and other albums. See him live if you get the chance- he is an incredible musician. Awesome scene by the way