From the monthly archives:

January 2008

I hadn’t realized that it was Ray Manzarek playing the bass on his organ/proto-synth, but duh, they didn’t have a bass player. I love Ray’s focussed bobbing as he plays. The dutiful drummer is always there, doesn’t seemed stoned out, ready to move when HE does. The guitarist infuses his frizzy hair into his fuzz-face [...]

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My Rufus Wainwright playlist

January 16, 2008

I haven’t played any Rufus Wainwright on the piano for a long time. I decided to sit down and play along with him, so these are the songs I’ll be playing tonight in my private concert. Sing along if ya like! (It’s in alphabetical order, but still makes a interesting playlist.)

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Cream: NSU (x 2)

January 16, 2008

Another one of my all time favorite songs is “NSU” by Cream, meaning Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, and a lot of drugs. I loved Cream. The metric/time world of NSU is great fun, much like the opening of Rufus Wainwright’s “Movies of Myself” where the opening figure has very little to do with [...]

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Some of us charge large hourly wages for our services. Lawyers, therapists, personal trainers, consultants, salaried employees and so on. I guess I’m one of those people. It occurred to me tonight while I was playing TUG with the dogs –– what are my hourly wages for playing with my dogs? $250 an hour? $500 [...]

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Sad, sad, sad. So much for Mr Robinson’s advice to young Benjamin in “Mrs Robinson.”
Think twice about tossing plastic “into the garbage.”

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The listening glossolalian

January 11, 2008

When I compose large vocal works (e.g “Hidden Legacies,” “Letters to the Future,” “Flashpoint/Stonewall,” “Rosarium,” “The Crocodile’s Christmas Ball,” and now “Home in Cyberspace,” friends who come to dinner are often corralled into my studio and made to listen to me sing whatever I’m working on. This is invaluable to me as I can see [...]

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This is another in a series of songs that I heard driving down the street in LA listening to KCRW and a song came on that nearly made my have an accident. This one is the formerly very young and cool artist, now older and more mature Fiona Apple. Her most recent album (2007) is [...]

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Imogen Heap: Hide and Seek

January 9, 2008

One of my favorite songs of all time is Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” here done with a video fantasy POV rather than IH performing it live, which she can do quite beautifully. When I first heard this song, I was driving home in LA, listening to KCRW and this came on. I nearly had [...]

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Things I can’t share

January 8, 2008

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My colleague Vladimir Chernov went home Christmas, but he didn’t tell me he was going to do THIS for a New Years Gala on Russian TV-Culture.

[Thanks to Mona Lands]

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