Straight outta the sky, through the spine

Check out Cab Calloway's line-up in this photo! This is how music should look! This is what dreams sound like! Look at that lightning! Listen to those drums thundering as the horns crackle spastic bolts of pure electricity—straight outta the sky, through the spine, swelling in the groin to grinding, hip-thumping dances of ecstasy! BALÁNSE! Two girls turning circles on the stairs with platters of yams on their heads! Bring on the dancing yam-yams! Look at their gam-gams shaking their can-cans all over the stage! There are no dancing Balánse girls in this photo—they may have just left the stage—they may be in the wings struggling with sweet orange tubers, they may not yet have come to the Land of the Dead or maybe someone forgot to meet them at the bus stop. But when you look close, I think this is what the radios look like in the Land of the Dead—crazed men swinging like hell in a little box on your night stand.