music Archives - Page 220 of 258 - Ramblin' with Roger

September Rambling: Frank Doyle’s daughter, and pie v grief

Congrats to Brian Ibbott of Coverville. Also, kudos to Arthur@AmeriNZ.

My old college friend Claire is 55 and Still Alive. Her late father, BTW, was awarded the Bill Finger Award at Comic-Con 2012.

Jaquandor’s review/reflection about the book Making Piece: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Pie by Beth Howard, which is about processing grief. And dessert. Check out her website.

Gemuetlichkeit: Dachau.

9/11: Another View.

Legal Analysis Outlines Potential Crime In Mitt Romney’s Financial Disclosures

“Recent DNA and genealogical evidence uncovered by Ancestry.com researchers suggests that President Obama is a descendant of one of America’s first documented African slaves. What surprised many is that Obama’s connection to slavery is through his white mother, not his black father.”

The Strange Story Of The Man Behind ‘Strange Fruit’.

Wells Fargo mistakenly forecloses on the wrong house, destroys elderly couple’s entire lifetime’s worth of possessions. Oops. And if it HAD been the right house, would the action be justified? (My answer is NO.)

The truth comes out: CEO says ‘stupid’ consumers deserve hefty fees.

Gay rights, free speech, politicians and the NFL.

Leo Meets His Internet Troll.

Son of a Bigot. His dad founded the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. Nate Phelps is dedicated to reversing that legacy of hate.

I am a First Year, First Semester, M.Div.

Under 18, or know someone who is? Name that asteroid! The deadline is December 2.

Kickstarter for MAN ON THE MOON exhibit at Space Center Houston.

The Big Daddy Kickstarter is still going on. I mentioned it before, but Mark Evanier has mentioned it again and again, so I shall as well.

Harvey Pekar statue to be dedicated at Cleveland Heights’ Lee Road library next month.

Cerebus: The Fantagraphics offer and the Dave Sim response. Follow the thread about other Sim-Fantagraphics product possibilities here.

1922 Kodachrome film.

The Last Record Store Standing?

George Martin: He Had You Hooked on the Beatles.

David Byrne’s How Music Works.

Emily Dickinson ages.

Congrats to Brian Ibbott of Coverville, who recently podcast his 900th show. One of the tunes on that episode was David Garrett – Vivaldi Vs Vertigo.

Also, kudos to Arthur@AmeriNZ, who has been blogging for six years. He’s been musing about modern technology.

Glamour is different on the other side of the pond if Emma Watson is the example.

Bug Comic: Rise and Whine, an insomniac’s lament.

People stuck on an escalator.

Music product placement?

An oldie, but goodie: Troy (MI) Library’s book burning campaign.

Jaquandor answered my questions here and here and here. Which reminds me: you can still Ask Roger Anything.

GOOGLE SEARCH

Visible light communication could simplify car electronics
A team led by Prof Roger Green is planning to demonstrate how visible light communication (VLC), which is already used as an alternative to wireless internet transmissions, could simplify and lighten the electronic systems in cars.

BOWLS: Moulton edged out in centenary match
In the battle of the presidents, Moulton’s Roger Green came out on top on rink four against Stuart Lake winning 24-17. But Green’s rink were pipped for top honours by Tony Keating who led his home quartet to a ten shots success.

Denver “folk & roll” songstress Esmé Patterson is releasing her solo album November 20th
Making appearances on the album are Nathaniel Rateliff, Roger Green (formerly of the Czars), Ben Desoto (Czars, Nathaniel Rateliff, Bare Bones), Genevieve Patterson and Sarah Anderson (Paper Bird), Carrie Beeder, Eric Moon, Mike Fitzmorris, Will Duncan, and many more.

K is for Kiss

Here are some songs about kissing, all of which charted on the US pop charts.

Some couples have “our song” or “our place.” My wife and I seem to have “our drawing.” It is, of course, “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918). My wife has a book about it, we have it on a mug, and at some level, it is an idealized version of us.

Klimt, according to Wikipedia, painted it “between 1907 and 1908, the highpoint of his ‘Golden Period’, when he painted a number of works in a similar gilded style. A perfect square, the canvas depicts a couple embracing, their bodies entwined in elaborate robes decorated in a style influenced by both linear constructs of the contemporary Art Nouveau style and the organic forms of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. The work is composed of conventional oil paint with applied layers of gold leaf, an aspect that gives it its strikingly modern, yet evocative appearance…”

“Klimt was 45 when he painted The Kiss, still living with his mother and two unmarried sisters,” yet reportedly had, let’s say, an active romantic life. There was a 2006 film called Klimt, starring John Malkovich, which I did not see, but it did not review well.

The artist was honored with a Google doodle in honor of the 150th anniversary of his birth earlier this year. Check out iklimt.com or klimtgallery.org for more information about Gustav Klimt.
***

Here are some songs about kissing, all of which charted on the US pop charts. I didn’t bother with Kiss by Prince, because his people are always taking down YouTube videos.

Kiss on My List – Hall & Oates (1980)
Kiss You All Over – Exile (1978)
Kisses Sweeter than Wine – Jimmie Rodgers (1957)
Kiss An Angel Good Morning – Charley Pride (1972)

What are your favorite songs about kissing?

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Six Songs of Me

I have been of the opinion that almost any song could be done in chicken.

Dustbury did NOT insist I do this, so naturally, I did:

What was the first song you ever bought?

As I’ve noted, I belonged to the Capitol Record Club in 1965, where I was buying albums, so I’m hard pressed to figure out the first single. It may have been Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine; I was then depressed by the release of the Revolver album a short time later, yet puzzled by the variation between the single version and the album version of Yellow Sub, as I noted recently. But the more I think about it, my first single was probably Soul And Inspiration by the Righteous Brothers (listen), which came out a few months earlier in 1966, as I remember that blue Verve label.

What song always gets you dancing?

Cliche that it might be, but it’s Celebration by Kool and the Gang (listen). A short-lived romance got me dragged to a local disco a few times in the day. Recently bought a greatest hits album by that group.

What song takes you back to your childhood?

As Dustbury wrote, “There are those who would argue that I never left.” That said, I’ll pick another song from my father’s singles collection, Bird Dog by the Everly Brothers (listen), on Cadence Records. I discovered that women should be referred to as poultry (quail, chick) – something I fortunately unlearned quickly; and that men were canines – is that still true?

What is your perfect love song?

Forever I have been a sucker for I Only Have Eyes for You by the Flamingoes (listen). Always makes me a bit misty.

What song would you want at your funeral?

I have been, for a long time, of the opinion that almost any song could be done in chicken. Bold songs, such as the 1812 Overture or the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony are particularly great. But the first song I heard which stimulated this proposition was In the Mood by Henhouse Five Plus Two (listen), the “group” actually being singer Ray Stevens. I first heard it on one of those Warner Brothers Loss leaders of the 1970s.

Time for an encore. One last song that makes you, you.

At bare minimum, the chorus of Don’t let me be misunderstood by The Animals (listen). “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good.” I think many of us feel that others don’t “get” us, and I certainly am not immune.
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Both Mark Evanier and Dustbury are supporting the Kickstarter effort for Big Daddy’s Smashing Songs of Stage and Screen. I third that emotion.

J is for Jazz

As Ira Gershwin said, in the line quoted in every obituary: ‘I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them.’

I decided that I don’t REALLY want to explain what jazz is, mostly because it’s too difficult. You can read all about it on the page dedicated to Ken Burns’ Jazz, the third in his trilogy of documentary miniseries about Americana, along with the Civil War and baseball. The Wikipedia reads: “Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in black communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions… As the music has developed and spread around the world it has drawn on many different national, regional, and local musical cultures giving rise, since its early 20th-century American beginnings, to many distinctive styles.”

This level of cultural integration is evident as musicians of different races often played together at a period in the United States where integration was NOT the watchword. Speaking of which, read what the New York Times columnist Frank Rich was moved to write a few days after Ella Fitzgerald’s death. He stated that in the Songbook series, she “performed a cultural transaction as extraordinary as Elvis’s contemporaneous integration of white and African-American soul.

“Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians. As Ira Gershwin said, in the line quoted in every obituary: ‘I never knew how good our songs were until I heard Ella Fitzgerald sing them.'”

Here are links to some great songs in various jazz traditions:

St. Louis Blues – W.C. Handy and Orchestra

Sing Sing Sing – Benny Goodman

Mood Indigo – Duke Ellington

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, a Gershwin tune

Salt Peanuts – Dizzy Gillespie

April in Paris – Count Basie (cuts off last 10 seconds)

Take Five – The Dave Brubeck Quartet, one of the few jazz songs to make it onto the pop charts in the rock era

My favorite album, Kind of Blue by Miles Davis (read)
So What 9:22
Freddie Freeloader 9:46
Blue in Green (Miles Davis and Bill Evans) 5:37
All Blues 11:33
Flamenco Sketches (Miles Davis and Bill Evans) 9:26

Finally, Jazz Corner Of The World/Birdland – Quincy Jones (1989) featured the last studio recordings of jazz legends Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan.

Oh, one of a number of lists of the 100 great jazz songs of all time.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

Fixing the Internet, episode 1057

In the course of my job, I’m on the Internet. A LOT. And invariably, I find items that are incorrect. Whether I bother to correct them depends on whether I think it’s substantial enough that someone else might assume it’s correct and restate it as fact.

I’ve only fixed two things on Wikipedia, as far as I can recall. One, which I did with Steve Bissette, was a major overhaul of the FantaCo post; still imperfect. The other was back in 2006 when someone indicated that the next Presidential campaign was in 2007, rather than 2008. But I do not find the need to add something insubstantial; e.g., another advertisement that made use of a cover of the Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night.

I’m listening to my favorite music podcast, Coverville. Episode #894 is an all-request show. The second song is listed as She’s All Liquored Up by Dash Rip Rock, a cover of the Mojo Nixon original [listen]; I’m not familiar with either version. But the song sounds very much like Dizzy Miss Lizzy, the old Larry Williams song covered by the Beatles [listen], which appeared on Beatles VI, the very first LP I owned, as well as the UK Help! album. Now, I’m not positive, because songs do get adapted and changed.

As it turns out Amazon lists the samples for the Tiger Town album by Dash Rip Rock, at least for tracks 5-9, one song off:
5. says True Drunk Love, IS Fallin’ Apart
6. says Shine A Light, IS True Drunk Love
7. says Dizzy Miss Lizzy, IS Shine A Light
8. says All Liquored Up, IS Dizzy Miss Lizzy
9. says Livin’ Breathin’, IS All Liquored Up

The sorta good fortune is that the error created an unintentional Beatles-related medley:
Gimme Some Truth by Sam Phillips (orig. John Lennon)
Dizzy Miss Lizzie by Dash Rip Rock (orig. Larry Williams, made famous by the Beatles)
Revolution by Grandaddy (orig. Beatles)

Host Brian Ibbott noted the error, and mentioned me, at about the 18-minute mark of the next show, Episode #895 featuring Van Morrison. He also mocked Amazon’s spelling of Martha Reeves’ name (as Reeeves) on this item, from which he culled a song for the show.

I’m trying to get Amazon to rectify these problems. Fixing the Internet: a full-time task.