There’s going to be a photographer at Beautiful + Damned tonight, taking pictures for official B&D flyers, a dedicated MySpace page and the like. Please come; and if you’re coming, please dress up. 8pm start, Metropolis on the screen, a bit of live performance, anything goes. And indeed, ‘Anything Goes’ from The Boys In The Band.
Tonight, I intend to play Paul Williams’s ‘The Rainbow Connection’ from The Muppet Movie, and either ‘Let’s Go Fly A Kite’ or ‘Feed The Birds’, or both, from Mary Poppins. I’ve also discovered a rather good version of ‘Cabaret’ by Louis Armstrong, which Russell “Not With A T’ Davies alerted me to on his excellent Radio 2 programme.
Trivia learned from the same radio show: Mr Sinatra’s song ‘New York New York’ – the one with the opening line “Start spreadin’ the news” – owes its creation to Robert De Niro, the star of the 70s Scorsese film for which it was written. The songwriters Kander and Ebb (of Cabaret and Chicago fame) originally wrote a completely different theme song, but Mr De Niro dismissed it as ‘too weak’. So they went away and produced the all too familiar one we know today, particularly popular after a few drinks.
