Dancing about architecture

Date: May 11, 2007
Time: 22:00
Place: Fernwood 2-night

Steven Colbert used this line as a preface to his interview with Jann Wenner on the 40th anniversary of the magazine "Rolling Stone". The quote "Writing (or talking) about music is like dancing about architecture". It's variously attributed to many people, the predominant suspects being Elvis Costello, Steve Martin, Frank Zappa, and Martin Mull.

My money is on Martin Mull. I own albums by all the contenders (several by Elvis and Frank) but that quote sounds to me like Martin Mull, of whose books I have owned two, "The History of White People in America", and the successor, "A Paler Shade of White" (if you're not laughing hysterically at this point, google (and I'm not making this up) "Procul Harem".

Martin Mull's 1978 epic "I'm EveryoneI've Ever Loved" is one of the great albums ever. Mull and Steve Martin were a team for awhile, writing for the Smothers Brothers. The song "Men" is from that collaboration. Martin used to have the rep as an edge comic, he kind of lost it due to exposure, but when you look at it, he's still there with something different. Like when in Roseanne, he plays a gay guy without the kind of "Will and Grace" trumpeting. Also, check out the Aristocrats.