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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 2/21/2023: Hold Onto Your Fur! [1]

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Date: 2023-02-21  

The Kiffness is a musician in South Africa whose real name is David Scott. Like many artists who had to give up performing live in 2020 because of Covid, he turned to YouTube, where he made Covid-related parody songs for a while. (That’s where we first met him in this space, in a 2020 diary of Covid parodies.) Finding that YouTube gave him a worldwide audience for his work, he began what he called “collabs”, finding some interesting bit of social-media video, featuring someone or some being who might or might not be intending to make music and, with the use of synthesizers, looping and editing software, and the occasional auto-tune, building a whole arrangement around it.

Since we find ourselves in the space between Feb. 20, the date in 2014 that Russia invaded Ukraine, and Feb. 24, the date in 2022 that Russia invaded Ukraine, I’m going to start with this: early in last year’s invasion, there was a viral video from Andriy Khlyvnyuk, the frontman of popular Ukrainian band Boombox. He’d enlisted, and posted an a cappella folksong from a deserted street. The Kiffness talked to him via the band’s social media, and they ended up with this layered-on joint arrangement, promoted through The Kiffness’ Bandcamp page to benefit Ukrainian causes. [3:08]

But let’s talk about cats and dogs, because KTK is a community that stands foursquare for cats and dogs, amirite? The Kiffness had begun to do remix videos with people-based memes, when someone asked him to remix a cat. The cat was making that strange vocalization that some cats make when they’re scared, a sort of “alugaluga” chant that can get almost verbal-sounding. He gave it a try, finding that the cat’s tone was suggesting a melody.

I’m skipping right past the original cat-and-Kiffness-only version of this first alugaluga cat, because I’d like to post two later remixes of it. The video spawned a series of viewer videos, where musicians around the world added on their own part, and he eventually collected and re-re-mixed several versions with these additions gathered in. The first is the “International Symphonic Mashup”, in which he’s omitted the original verse he added in favor of more musicians. [3:40]

Then we have the “International Funk Mashup”, in which he’s rewritten the words to his verse. [1:56]

But what of dogs? you may well ask. Yes, there are dogs, too, and it’s not at all a surprise that some of them sing. (The “Sam” to whom this video is dedicated is his then-three-week-old son.) [4:01]

This poor kitty has the allergy attack of my nightmares, and The Kiffness gets inspired by The Weeknd’s Blinding Lights. [2:03]

Haiku the Husky doesn’t need much help with his tune, perhaps because it’s the Ancient Husky Melody. (Joining The Kiffness in singing is Mrs. Kiffness.) [2:38]

This one is in heavy competition with the final one to be my personal favorite. Both of them impose actual lyrics on the cat utterances (and not especially sensible ones). The thing is, it kind of sounds like the cat’s singing those words, but once the words appear in a subtitle while the cat is singing them, it’s very hard to un-hear them. This is a reggae tune. [3:07]

Opera Dog’s tail action doesn’t look nearly as mournful as his song. [1:53]

Despite being tagged “Oh Long Johnson 2.0”, this is not the same cat as the reggae cat, but just as “verbal”. His song is more complex and, I warn you, extremely catchy. The “Lalala dog” from this other video makes a special appearance in the bridge of this song, and for the finale, our old friend Vibing Cat shows up. [3:17]

Okay, then!

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