With the exception of the parade of nations, which I always get a kick out of, and maybe the cauldron lighting, I can really do without the Olympic opening ceremonies. But this moment, k.d. lang singing Hallelujah, just gave me chills:
The official video is on the NBC Olympics site.
One of the great discoveries of living in Melbourne was the music. Everyone knows INXS, Midnight Oil and AC/DC. But the there are many lesser lights in the Australian rock diaspora that never escape from the shores of Oz. I've been listening to this music for years. Now, with the help of Muxtape, I'm going to share some of it with you. Enjoy the Forgotten Legends of Aussie Rock:
I can't remember the last time I made a mixed tape. For that matter, I can't remember the last time I owned a cassette player that could record. Must have been in high school and I need some serious hypnotherapy to remember most of what went on there.
But no matter. Don't need any of that analag shit to make a mixed tape these days. Just need Muxtape. It's as simple as you can imagine. Open an account. Upload MP3's. Share. When I get home tonight, I'll set one up and share it will ya'll. In the mean time, check out the Resurrection of Cool on Pandora if you want to hear some cool jazz.
Check out my station Winter Wonderland on Pandora. It's got Elvis, Sinatra, Connick, jr., Martin, Como, Crosby, Diana Krall, Ray Charles, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash and whole lot more. Even this atheist, organized-religion hater, can get into Christmas tunes.
Pandora is one of the sites that makes the web worth having. The site is a direct result of the Music Genome Project where a group of "a group of musicians and music-loving technologists" came together to perform a complex analysis of all music and codify songs based on hundreds of musical attributes or "genes". With Pandora you can benefit from the fruits of their Herculean labor.
At it's core, Pandora is a jukebox. It plays music. The genius of this jukebox is that you have the ability to create your own stations of music based on an artist or a song. Say for example, you like Chet Baker. Then you can create a Chet Baker station. The station will play Chet Baker songs, of course, but it will also try to find jazz tunes similar in melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, etc. to play.
The system isn't perfect, which is to be expected, and sometimes you'll hear songs that you don't think belong. All you have do is give the thumbs down and you'll never hear that song again. Similary, you can give a song the thumbs up and it will become a permanent part of the station's play list. Pandora will continue to refine your station based on your selections.
You can create as many stations as you want. You can share them friends. Buy the music if you are so inclined. And the service is free. If they could just figure out a way to get the songs on my IPod or in my car radio, I'd be set.
Here are some of my stations:
If you only take one piece of advice from me, it should be this: If someone, anyone says to to something like, hey, I've got an extra ticket to U2, would you like to come? Say, yes. Do yourself a favor and say yes.
Stern Grove. I have lived in the Bay Area for most of the last 17 years and until this weekend I had never heard of Stern Grove. Either I'm completely oblivious and I have no idea what's going on around me or there's so much going it's hard to keep track of everything.
The odd thing is I had driven by the grove dozens of times over the years. It's a stand of tall eucalyptus trees in the southwestern corner of San Francisco right off 19th Avenue, the main thoroughfare into the city from the south, one that I used to take whenever I drove up to town from Santa Cruz and Burlingame. I can remember seeing banners hanging there in the trees promoting some event or another, but I never paid much attention, probably because I was too anxious or excited to get to the city to pay attention to what the trees were saying.
On Sunday Jennifer and I went to see some opera music at Stern Grove featuring mezzo-sopranoDenyce Graves who was a last minute replacement for Carol Vaness. But, damn, she was impressive.
The concert started around 2pm, but we arrived at noon to get a decent spot to sit, eat lunch and watch the music. Even two hours before the concert, the place was packed. All the tables and chairs were spoken for. People laid out blankets all across the terraced grass and the granite steps. We had to climb up the hill above most of the spectators to find a seat just beyond last stone wall. We threw down some blankets and settled in, enjoying a leisurely picnic while we waited for the program to start.
I was responsible for all the food and drink. Here's what we had:
I usually don't like live music. Well, let me qualify that. I love the music. With a few notable exceptions, I hate the crowds, the waiting and generally the whole experience. But when I went to see the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra at Yoshi's last Wednesday, I loved it. It was awesome.
I had been to Yoshi's in Oakland before, but only to eat. I had never been to see a show. I didn't even really know what we were going to see. Jennifer had danced at some party at an art gallery run by a friend of hers and Marcus Shelby was there with a few guys from his band providing music. That's how she found out about the show.
I figured it would just be a few guys on stage, but it was a full 15 piece ensemble in the intimate quarter circular venue. 5 saxophones. 4 trumpets. 3 trombones. A drummer. A piantist. And Marcus Shelby directing the whole thing with his double bass. I hadn't anything like since I saw a jazz band in a tiny place in New York City over a year ago.
The show was a celebration of Duke Ellington's Birthday, which was a week or so back. Shelby and the band played all these standards (Ain't got a Thing, Take the A-Train, etc.) and gave some history of the band and its members. I was mesmerized. I watched Shelby's fingers work the bass. He was so cool, so assured in his movements. Under his stewardship, the band pumped out the huge Duke sound, one classic song after another. It was great.
Through the always interesting site of web designer Mike Davidson, I came across a new site called Our Media, which looks really promising. Here's a blurb from their mission statement:
Create. Share. Get noticed. That's what Our Media is about.Our Media is a global community and learning center where you can gain visibility for your works of personal media. We'll host your media forever - for free.
Video blogs, photo albums, home movies, podcasting, digital art, documentary journalism, home-brew political ads, music videos, audio interviews, digital storytelling, children's tales, Flash animations, student films, mash-ups - all kinds of digital works have begun to flourish as the Internet rises up alongside big media as a place where we'll gather to inform, entertain and astound each other.
Sounds good, no?
Already I've found something I really like. I haven't seen music videos in ages, I don't even know where to go to find them these days. MTV? No. VH1? Nope. Our Media has got them though.
The featured video is from an artist named Sam Bisbee. Ever heard of him? No? Me neither. Doesn't matter. You should check out his "You Are Here" video.
Like I've said, I haven't seen a whole lot of music videos lately, so I don't know how revolutionary this one is, but I've never seen anything like it. The whole video is shot looking down at a coffee table while a pile of pictures, taken at short increments, is stacked (or sometimes removed) on the table. The effect is almost like looking at video, well, maybe like looking at video with every other frame removed. It's totally cool. And the music isn't bad either.
I'm not prepared to say whether or not Our Media and the power of the Internet is going to sweep Mr. Bisbee into the national consciousness, but I wouldn't be surprised. Check it out tell me what you think.
Well maybe not, but that's the title of a TISM song that has been flashified. You should have a listen. Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me is a great song and emblematic of the witty insouciance, clever lyrics and catchy beats that form most TISM songs.
TISM (which stands for "This is Serious, Mum" in case you weren't in the know) is a small band from Melbourne, Australia whom I saw a few times when I did a year abroad back, wow, in 1993. Was it really that long ago?
I saw them live twice, at the Big Day Out at the Melbourne Fairgrounds a few weeks after I arrived and didn't know shit about anything and then again in November at the Pushover concert at the Olympic Park. I don't remember these dates because I have some great memory. Everyone who knows me, knows that my memory ain't worth shit. The band has a page that lists every single one of their live dates. Ever. The venues read likes a map of my pub crawling, music greedy year. The Punter's Club. The Evelyn. The Metro. The Esplanade (God, I loved the Espy). The Prince of Wales. And on and on. One of the best things about Melbourne was its simple accessibility.
TISM is an "unknown" band. What I mean by that is they always come on stage in costume, play under pseudonyms and no one really knows who they are. When I saw them at the Pushover they were dressed in back from head to toe including balaclavas (what we Yanks call ski masks) over their heads. They each had a huge green fluorescent number from 1-7 attached to their backs with a metal frame so that number hung over their heads and bobbed around during their dance bits.
At one point, the lead singer Ron Hitler-Barassi jumped into the crowd and his mask was pulled off revealing someone with short brownish hair who looked more like an accountant than rock star. He's probably both although he jokes about maintaining his anonymity for the sake of his constituents.
If you want to read more about TISM, there's a great interview entitled Return of the Pop Vigilantes.
Even if you're not interested in the music, you should have a look at
Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me for the elegant animation. Thanks, Brian, for sending it my way.
This time of year, especially today, Christmas Eve, people around the world are inundated with Christmas carols. I've been spared it for the most part as I'm trapped here in Sedona and haven't been out to the mall. I'm also somewhat ambivalent being a Red Sea pedestrian, and all. However I do enjoy the occasional piece of Xmas music.
If you go down to your local record shop or pop onto Amazon, you'll find that almost every artist of note has produced a Christmas album, some somewhat amusing like Michael Bolton, others classic like Bing Crosby and a few absolutely brilliant like Nat King Cole. But for my money, it doesn't get any better than Ray Charles.
So this Christmas Eve, I will be spending part of the time downloading classic Christmas hits from Mr. Charles and others, including James Brown, Sinatra, Presley, maybe even Mathis (and anyone else that comes to mind).
Have yourself a Merry little Christmas!
There's a song on that getting tons of air time on Magik 98.1 FM in Samoa. It's by a rapper called 50 cent and I think the song is called "21 Questions".
Anyway there's a lyric in the song that goes something like this:
You know I love you like a fat kid love (sic) cake
Once you get over the basic problem of subject-verb agreement, you have this incredibly odd simile. Certainly, there is no finer love than that between an obese adolescent and his baked goods, but come on, this can't be serious. Are you with me on this ladies?
Call me old fashioned, but can you imagine Sinatra crooning about portly children and cake?
How much do I love you?
I’ll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How many times a day do I think of you?
How many roses are sprinkled with dew?
How far would I travel
To be where you are?
How far is the journey
from here to a star?
How much do I love you?
How much does a fat kid love cake?
Hmmm, maybe it does have a certain ring to it.
The original song was written and sung by an Algerian performer named Cheb Khlaed, the King of Rai - a blend of rock n' roll and traditional North African music. Khaled's voice is hypnotic. He has the ability to transport you to another space and time.
"Aischa" is such a beautiful song. If you don't know it you should try to find it online somewhere for a listen. You can download the mp3 from this Arabic music site I found.
I first heard "Aischa" back when I was lucky enough to be dating a belly dancer. She used the song in her repertoire. Even today I can’t hear the song on the radio (even though it’s not Khaled’s version) without thinking her twirling on the carpet at El Morocco in her gorgeous silvery white costume. It's a great image in my mind.
The lyrics are in French and Arabic. The insert has a the translation in English for those sad monoglots like myself.
A taxi ride just isn't a taxi ride in Samoa unless you take a stroll down amnesia lane courtesy of the cabbie's radio. Last night, as we made the final turn behind the airport, I could make out the unmistakable strains of Heavy D and Boys belting out "Now that we found love, what are we going to do, with it?" Indestructible rap music.
You know, when i first listened to the Brazil disc Jen sent, I didn't like it. In fact, I was kinda bummned, because the pace of the songs is generally slow, and I was looking for something a little more upbeat to rock to in my fale.
But now, after several dozen listens, I'm hooked. I love it. The songs are so powerful and yet catchy at the same time. If only I could understand what they are saying. Portuguese is so much gibberish to my ears.
I read today on Google News and few other sites about the passing of Nina Simone, the high priestess of soul.
I first came across her music from the odd place, the reasonable American remake of Le Femme Nikita called Point of No Return (originally entitled The Assassin when I saw the trailer) with Gabriel Byrne and Bridget Fonda.
Bryne plays the CIA agent while Fonda the role of the reluctant assassin. She uses Simone's music to quell her inner demons. Simone's music is, of course, lovely, and is also one of the few notable differences, other than the beefed up cast, between the original and the remake. The movie's other great asset is Venice Beach as backdrop for Fonda's re-entry into the real world.
Says PONR director John Badham, "Simone is a woman who doesn't take any crap from anybody." Right on, brother.
So when I listen to compilation of Brazilian music that Jennifer sent me, I don't hear the words, just the rhythms. And the rhythms kill.
When I first started listening to the CD, I wasn't all to pleased. I really looking forward to some rocking Samba music to liven up the fale, and this was mostly bossa nova and other genres.
But the more I listened, the more the songs grew on me. They are sweet and sexy. When I put the disc in, it gives me so much energy. I forget for a few precious minutes that I'm in Samoa and I'm transported back to Rio. I remember all the reasons I love Rio and want to get back there as soon as possible.
If only I understood Portuguese. I'd really have something.
Here is the blurb from the liner notes:
Throughout its history, Brazil has been a land of diversity and paradox, as a European Portuguese influence struggled to mesh with a West African culture. The soft sounds of the bassa nova versus the pulsating rhythms of the carnival samba. The untamed Amazon river juxtaposed with five-star beach resorts. A free-spirited people alternately controlled by a colonial power, an emperor, and a military dictatorship. The music of Brazil is the perfect foil to the country's unique and amazing history. Brazil's Euroean, African and native Indian roots are incorporated into the sounds of samba, choro, bossa nova, forro-music which tells the story of this land and its people.
