I’m old enough to remember when this came out.
I can imagine her in the recording studio–– half glasses with diamond rhinestones, incredulously squinting at the sheet music someone provided her, not quite sure what to do with these peculiar syncopations.
I remember her “cover” (more like ‘duck and cover’) of Petula Clark’s “Downtown” which was just […]
Here is a respectful and spirited cover of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” David Lee Roth looks exceptionally fit in his cartoon-like performance. The guitar solos are downright naughty and as sexy as Roth’s body movements. The bratty scream, originally heard on the Kinks’ original, is aped perfectly when the chord moves up a […]
Yesterday in my music theory class I “introduced” chords. These are smart students, so of course they know their basic triads. I still feel compelled to not take anything for granted and re-introduce them one by one, explaining them as carefullly as possible, with great enthusiasm.
All triads are made up of three notes, and in […]
Matthew Fisher, Procol Harum’s ex-organist is in court fighting for the ownership of his solo in the group’s famous hit single “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” The song was originally written by Gary Brooker and lyricist Keith Reid. The contention is that because Mr. Fisher played and composed the famous organ solo at the opening, […]
Video: Underneath the Harlem Moon - The Brown Sisters
This just in from Weirdo Video. The Brown Sisters sing “Underneath the Harlem Moon.”
(Old Ravel)
Take a few minutes out of your busy day and spend a few minutes with one of the most gorgeous moments in piano concerto history. It is the 2nd movement of Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto. I feel an affinity with this movement. It is perhaps at the heart of my take on tonality as […]
Out Magazine will feature a list of 100 most important gay people of 2006 in their upcoming December 2006 issue and will of course include Rufus Wainwright who gets the “Entertainer of the Year” award.
In its special December issue, Out recognizes the 100 most influential people in gay culture with a special list spanning categories […]
BibliOdyssey has a marvelous exhibit of Rosicrucian illustration. I hesitate to call this collection “art,” as it might be more appropriately called visual teaching.
I thought I wanted to become a Rosicrucian at one point in my life. I remember reading one of their publications called “Lemuria” about a great island in the Pacific that […]
Here is a spirited performance by Beck. I’m not sure who the other guys are, but I’m inviting them to my next dinner party. I have had many memorable dinners in my life where after everyone finishes eating, we begin to play the dishes and the water and wine glasses. I went through a period […]
OddPeak has a post of the 10 most impressive photos of our universe. This one, referred to as the “pale blue dot,” is a haunting image of our planet from around 4 billion miles away taken by Voyager 1 in 1990. Carl Sagan entitled a book by the same name he was so taken by […]
Watch a segment from AnimusicDisks.com on YouTube. The synchronization is terrific. The music came first. Each musical stroke or motion made to produce a sound is some kind of a short loop. Whether these motion gestures are triggered by the same sequencing software that captured the multi-track original, I don’t know. The precise movements of […]
Twenty years ago, Barry Schrader, composer and professor at California Institute of the Arts, gathered a group of composers together who specialize in electronic music (soon to be called electro-acoustic music, meaning a blend of “true” sounds and electronic sounds) and live and teach in southern California, to form a new concert series. We decided […]
Perhaps the notion of “kvetch” is being updated with the birth of “Complaint Choirs.” Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. The idea seems to be catching on as a “Complaint Choir” has […]
Here is a technique I haven’t considered. It makes the point. I’m sure that later the student retrieved his phone and traded up to a better one. So all in all, it comes out a win-win event for both parties. But I bet the students turn their phones off now.
Usually there are senior citizens at our voting places in Hollywood. This year it was different, OK, the two ladies that checked us in were septuagenarians. But then I turned the table and a gorgeous black woman with eye lashes for days looked at me and said in her most sultry voice “I bet you […]
On Saturday, we had a dinner party for a lot of Daniel’s designer buddies and old classmates, something he likes to do once a year just to get the old gang back together for fun, food, and networking. His stroke of genius on this one was to have an “Iron Chef Dinner” where prizes would […]
I have a new hero in the banjo world: Eddie Peabody. Wow, no hint of bluegrass or country anywhere. The guy is a real entertainer, and I love his backup babes with banjos. And you thought Robert Palmer was the first to do that.
Subscribe in a reader