Rock of Ages

posted by The Sailor @ 5:12 PM Permalink

Labels: music

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On my favorite music artists has just releasead all her stuff for free.

posted by The Vidiot @ 1:54 PM Permalink

Sort of awesome really. Her name is Jane Siberry. I saw her perform in the Village back in the late 80s. I had never heard of her and everyone was like "I can't describe it but you'll love it." And boy did I. Here's my favorite album of hers, "The Walking" (My favorite so far anyway. I've not heard her recent stuff.) Here's the link to the rest of it.

IT IS FREE, A GIFT FROM JANE. TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT.

AND ‘PAY IT FORWARD’ TO OTHERS.

Labels: music

0 comments

And Echos with the Sounds of Science

posted by The Sailor @ 12:43 PM Permalink

Symphony of Science - The Poetry of Reality
The best use of auto-tune I've ever seen.

Labels: music, science

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Sweet Charity

posted by The Sailor @ 2:15 PM Permalink

This story at C&L caught my eye:

A Tale of Christmas Magic at the Aramingo Diner

Last Saturday, Dec. 5th, something startling and wonderful happened at The Aramingo Diner in Port Richmond.
[...]
The manager on duty, Linda [...] tells me that a couple in their 30s paid their check at the register, then asked the cashier to let them secretly pay the check of another couple in the dining room - a couple they didn't know.

"They just wanted to do it," she said. "They thought it would be a nice thing to do."

When the unsuspecting patrons went to pay their check, they were floored to find out that strangers had picked up their tab. So they asked the cashier to let them pay another table's check, also anonymously.
[...]
For two hours, delighted customer after delighted customer continued to pay the favor forward. And a buzz began to grow. Not among patrons, who had no inkling what was going down at the register, but among the dining-room wait staff - Marvin, Rosie, Jasmine and Lynn - and other Aramingo workers moving in and out of the room.

I did something similar yesterday. Where I work we have a hiring freeze, raises canceled, healthcare bennies cut back, (the last strikes me as ironic because we do medical research.) But I still have a job and it pays fairly well. To quote my friend Bill Arnett:I. Am. One. Of. The. Lucky. Ones.

So I took the money I would have spent on gifts for people who don't really need them and asked the supervisor of one of our tech support groups to step out into the hall because I had a complaint about his groups' work.
After we were alone I told him my complaint was that they didn't get their bonuses this year. I forked over some cash and told him it was from the research wing and he should distribute it as he saw fit.

Now this particular guy is very conservative, listens and believes Rush, but he's got a good heart and does good work, and I'm willing to bet when he handed out the 'bonuses' he probably added a bit of his own.

This was in addition to what I gave my favorite local charity that does nothing but feed people. No questions, no eval, no bureaucracy; if you walk in they give you a free meal. They're always going to be in my heart because I've been hungry, and being hungry sucks.

I'm not writing about this to tell what a great guy I am, (everyone who knows me well knows I'm not), but just to say if you've got an extra couple of bucks give it to people who need it. What I gave this year stings just a little bit. Heck, I may have to delay my vacation for a month or two. But what little I gave makes a whole lot more difference to the folks I gave it to than to me.





Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: giving, music, sweet charity

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And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

posted by The Sailor @ 6:53 PM Permalink

I think this is really cool:

Like a Skyline Is Etched in His Head

In a helicopter above the city on Friday, Stephen Wiltshire of London looked down at the streets and sprawl of New York. He flew for 20 minutes. Since then, working only from the memory of that sight, he has been sketching and drawing a mighty panorama of the city, rendering the city’s 305 square miles along an arc of paper that is 19 feet long. He is working publicly in a gallery at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
[...]
“I always memorize by helicopter,” he said on Tuesday, pausing from detailing the corners of a street on the Brooklyn side of the Williamsburg Bridge.

Mr. Wiltshire sees and draws. It is how he connects. Until age 5, he had never uttered a word. One day, his kindergarten class at a school for autistic children in London went on a field trip.

When they came back, he spoke.

“He said, ‘Paper,’ ” his sister, Annette Wiltshire, said. “The teacher asked him to say it again. He said it. Then they asked him to say something else, and he said, ‘Pen.’ ”

Check out his website, and check out his work.

IMHO, this is the best rendition of What A Wonderful World:


To paraphrase Warren Zevon IRT Tom Waits: I can sing like Louis ... once.



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: art, music

1 comments

The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself

posted by The Sailor @ 10:10 PM Permalink

Labels: music

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Insomniac Music

posted by The Sailor @ 1:18 AM Permalink

Tuesday Genius 10:
Cry Me a River - Diana Krall
At This Moment - Billy Vera and the Beaters
You Send Me - Otis Redding
People Get Ready - Rare Earth
I Wanna Get Next To You - Rose Royce
How Can You Mend A Broken Heart - The Bee Gees
I Wish It Would Rain - The Temptations
Feeling Alright - David Ruffin
Slow Jam Sweet Thing - Rufus with Chaka Khan
Day Is Done - Norah Jones

What can I say, my iPod knew what I wanted to listen to even before I did.

And one more for the road:

Labels: music

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Ain't no smilin' faces, Lyin' to the races

posted by The Sailor @ 9:36 PM Permalink

Bumped and updated:

Officer who sent 'jungle-monkey' e-mail: 'I am not a racist'

The Boston police officer who sent a mass e-mail in which he compared Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. to a "banana-eating jungle monkey" has apologized, saying he's not a racist.

Hey, some of his best friends are "banana-eating jungle monkey[s]."

And just because he cried when he offered his non-apology apology i.e. "I am not a racist. I did not intend any racial bigotry, harm or prejudice in my words. I sincerely apologize that these words have been received as such."

That's no reason to think he's a racist! After all, it's all the "banana-eating jungle monkey"[s] who are practicing reverse-racism that have caused this problem.

He cried because he might lose his job, health insurance and retirement. Dude, man up! You said what you think, own the words. That's what free speech is all about.

But free speech also means that citizens don't have to pay your bigoted, racist, stupid, stupid, (did I mention stupid), salary, or your retirement, or your health care.

Gosh, if Congress enacts health care reform you and your family will still have health care.

And then you can holler your bigoted screed from whatever street corner you want to.

And you and your family will still have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

BTW, I know a place:




Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: bad cops, music, racism

2 comments

I don't care what they say I won't stay In a world without love

posted by The Sailor @ 6:37 PM Permalink

Gordon Waller, of Peter and Gordon, passed away last Friday. He was 64. It seems a bit ironic since Paul McCartney wrote the title song of this post.

As I recall I only had enough money to buy either Chad & Jeremy or Peter & Gordon for my first 45. I went with Chad & Jeremy, but I've since bought P&J albums on vinyl and songs on iTunes, they were some of the songs of my youth.

Enough about me, here's what Peter Asher said about Gordon on their website:

Gordon played such a significant role in my life that losing him is hard to comprehend – let alone to tolerate.

He was my best friend at school almost half a century ago. He was not only my musical partner but played a key role in my conversion from only a snooty jazz fan to a true rock and roll believer as well. Without Gordon I would never have begun my career in the music business in the first place. Our professional years together in the sixties constitute a major part of my life and I have always treasured them.

We remained good friends (unusual for a duo!) even while we were pursuing entirely separate professional paths and I was so delighted that after a hiatus of almost forty years we ended up singing and performing together again more recently for the sheer exhilarating fun of it. We had a terrific time doing so.

Gordon remains one of my very favourite singers of all time and I am still so proud of the work that we did together. I am just a harmony guy and Gordon was the heart and soul of our duo.

I shall miss him in so many different ways. The idea that I shall never get to sing those songs with him again, that I shall never again be able to get annoyed when he interrupts me on stage or to laugh at his unpredictable sense of humour or even to admire his newest model train or his latest gardening effort is an unthinkable change in my life with which I have not even begun to come to terms.

Full disclosure: I worked for Peter Asher Management on my last major tour. They did the best job of any management company I'd ever worked for. Our contracts were solid, a call home would straighten out any problems with the clubs, and the prep work they did for my artist was incredible. We knew how far and directions to not only the next hotel and the next venue, but the stores and bookstores within range of our hotel. It almost made the artist happy.



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: music, requiem

0 comments

Que, Sarah, Sarah!?

posted by The Sailor @ 11:28 AM Permalink

Bumped & Updated below.

Columnists award Palin dubious honor
Sitting Duck Award goes to 'the most ridiculed newsmakers in America'

[...]
Past president Mike Leonard, a columnist for The Herald Times of Bloomington, Ind.: "As a Hoosier, I feel that she's done something that Dan Quayle could never do. Which was to make Dan Quayle look good. ... After the election, the video of Sarah and the poultry processing factory ... that pretty much says it all. The gift that keeps on giving."

Update: In an interview with ABC ... wait, what!? It's the media's fault but she keeps doing everything she can to extend her 15 minutes of infamy!? Anyhoo

As to whether another pursuit for national office, as when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House less than a year ago, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there was a difference between the White House and what she had experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.

The WH has a 'Department of Law!?' Huh, who knew?[/snark]

I've seen comments on other sites that the reason Dems & some Repubs are 'attacking' Sarah (if by 'attacking her' they mean 'letting her talk') is that we're scared of her.

I have to admit I'm scared .... but for her not of her. I'm scared she won't make it to 2012 if someone doesn't put her on a respirator stat! She's too stupid to breathe.

And I disagree with her latest award, she's not a sitting duck, she's a turkey in a hopper.




Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: music, sarah palin

0 comments

Venturing into the unknown

posted by The Sailor @ 5:53 PM Permalink

Updated below for additional SteveAudio input.

Bob Bogle, founding member of The Ventures, is now playing in a more heavenly venue. I can't say it any better than The Ventures' site does:

Bob Bogle 1934-2009

Jun, 14 2009
It is with profound sadness and grief that we must inform Ventures' fans all over the world that Bob Bogle passed away on Sunday, June 14. Our thoughts and prayers are with Bob's family at this terrible time, especially his beloved wife, Yumi, who has been the light of his life for so many years. The Ventures' members are completely devasted, and share the pain of this loss with all our friends and fans. As more information becomes available, it will be posted here, and we hope to set up a section on this site for messages from those who wish to post them.

The music world has lost a true original and an innovator - may all our wonderful memories console us.

It's somewhat comforting to know that Bob lived long enough to see The Ventures inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008.

As I wrote in 2006:

Why Aren't The Ventures in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!?

The Ventures are still touring with the surviving original members and have sold 110+ million albums worldwide. They are the biggest selling instrumental rock & roll group of all time. They've influenced everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Joe Satriani to countless players who didn't have a clue as to who helped forge their style.

So I'm instituting the 1st ever vidiotspeak drive ... no, not for something as crass as $$, but to get The Ventures into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

SteveAudio actually had the honor to work with The Ventures:

Oddly enough, I, too, played with The Ventures. For about an hour, in 1980. They had used a keyboard player named Biff Vincent for a few tours, and I did tech work for his studio, at the time located in Costa Mesa, CA.

While I was there one day, installing some new equipment, he was working on something with Mel Taylor and Don Wilson, drummer and rhythm guitarist from The Ventures. They were trying to record something for a demo using a Vocoder, and Don, being a rhythm player, couldn't quite get it.

Biff knew that I played quite a lot, and asked if I would mind, and of course I said yes. So I played guitar on a Ventures demo for about an hour, long ago, far away.

That, of course, means nothing in the big picture. What really matters is that these guys played rock instrumental guitar music, at a time when it was all brand new. and for that, they deserve inclusion into the R'n'R HOF.

Here's Tacoma's News Tribune quoting co-founder Don Wilson:

“Boy, I tell you, he’s the brother I never had,”
[...]
“And he is much more than any brother could be. He and I were partners for, like, 52 years. And to tell you the honest truth, we had never, ever had an argument in all that time — never.”
[...]
“If you listen to ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ and ‘Perfidia,’ the lead guitar is just totally unique,” Wilson said. “He used that vibrato bar – they call it a whammy bar – and he used it like nobody else.

“Nobody had heard anything like it. That was why ‘Walk, Don’t Run’ was such a monster hit. I run across so many people, guitar players – famous ones - and they say the first song I learned was ‘Walk, Don’t Run’.”

And 40 years later:



Thanks Bob, Telstar never shined so bright that you didn't eclipse it.

Update (SteveAudio):

Instrumental songs are something many rock listeners today don't think about. They have been important in all types of pop music all through the 20th Century, and especially once the electric guitar emerged as the instrument that would define rock.

When I started playing in bands in '63, instrumentals were mandatory. And while many famous instrumentals still get air play today, from Sleepwalk to Rumble to Tequila to Miserlou, The Ventures made the unusual career of recording virtually only instrumentals.

Every aspiring guitarist of the early '60s knew most of The Ventures' repertoire. But the song that defined them and was arguably the high point of their career was indeed "Walk, Don't Run". While many early rock instrumentals were fairly simplistic and often downright primitive, The Ventures' work, due to their ages and jazz experiences, showed much more subtlety than most rock did in 1960 when WDR was recorded and released.

But that makes sense when you consider that they didn't write the song. Jazz guitar great Johnny Smith did. They took his not loud but hard-swinging song and gave it a rock feel.

Here are 3 songs of Johnny's "Walk Don't Run" (1954) album, starting with the eponymous title song:



Listen to all 3 songs, they're all pretty great.


Update 2:

Please see my friend Max's post at Crooks & Liars:

The Ventures (the best selling instrumental band of all time) are the style's finest. Bob Bogle may be gone, but he's in every whammy bar shake on a Stratocaster for some time to come.

Indeed.

Labels: music, requiem

0 comments

Deer Prudence ...or ... the buck stops here

posted by The Sailor @ 8:27 PM Permalink

I just saw a fawn a block from my house. I live near the middle of a town of 70,000 people. And I like venison, but run, Bambi, run!





Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: animal cruelty, music

0 comments

Heaven's New Blue(s) Star

posted by The Sailor @ 5:45 PM Permalink

Koko Taylor has passed away, she was 80 and it was a helluva run.

I was lucky enough to work with her on two occasions, in two different towns, in two different states, 2 years apart, in the mid-1980's. The shows went great, she and her band were so tight and so good I wondered why the hell they were working clubs and allowing me to run sound for them. She had more W.C. Handy awards than any other artist.

If you ever saw her you know that she was a force of nature. A big woman with a voice to match but nice as pie and funny. There was nothing ladylike about her singing, just pure woman, and you knew this was not a woman to be messed with. She was nice to me but could be hell on club owners and booking agents. Yet another thing I admired about her.

When I worked with her she traveled with her husband, Pops Taylor. He was an almost diminutive man that dressed sharp and was fiercely protective in a professional and polite way. I remember when a friend told me of his passing in 1989 and I felt saddened and wondered how she could go on. But she did, and some of her best years were ahead of her. Amazing for a someone who didn't have a music career until she was 38.

At 80 she was still doing 70 dates a year and was looking forward to her next tour in Europe and developing new material.

Here's another personal remembrance by Blue Girl.

Koko, I just Can't Let Go:

Labels: music, requiem

0 comments

Change, change, change*

posted by The Sailor @ 3:15 PM Permalink

On a personal note: I have a habit of emptying my pockets every night and tossing all my change into a brass bowl. When that gets full, (and it takes a while because I use my credit/debit card for most purchases), I transfer the change to a coffee can. Today the coffee can was full and the brass bowl was full.

Which is the long way around of saying: I got a new iPod!

I lost the last one when I put it in my laptop bag, (only Dell would design a laptop bag with outside 'pockets' that had no bottom.) I had so many fond memories of that iPod. [/sigh] But this one is much better and cheaper.

I love my iPod.


*My apologies to Aretha for the title.




Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: music

1 comments

It's Spring!

posted by The Sailor @ 6:34 PM Permalink

Ahh, air on a G string always takes me Bach, or maybe it's just spring fever! Whatever, if it's not baroque, don't fix it.

Labels: music

2 comments

25 or 6 to 4

posted by The Sailor @ 5:27 PM Permalink

I was reading Dr. Sardonicus at Pole Hill Sanitarium and he had an interesting post a few days ago.

Albums that changed your life

Well. That's a deep subject.

But I got to thinking, there are some albums that may have affected my life. I'm not saying they changed it, they were probably more reflective of changes I had already made or wanted to make, but the good Dr's qualifier says "These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions."

I would take the rules one step further.

You have to hear the album in your mind. Not the dental drill that makes up a pop tune you can't get out of your head, but an album you can imagine that 'there was a band playing in my head.'

So hear goes albums that changed my life, in no particular order:

Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
Are You Experienced
(I didn't appreciate Hendrix until I got stoned. Take that For What What It's worth.)

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
(I wasn't even stoned, just a great awakening.)

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
(A few years later, but it's deeper and more personal to me.)

Spirit - 12 Dreams of Dr Sardonicus
(One of the best albums ever. As far as I'm concerned, it ranks right up there with the Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road albums. It's brilliant in production, in composition, in musicianship.)

Yes - Yessongs
(Best live performances and best produced live album evah IMHO! p.s. I did see the tour, 3 times, and bought the LPs, the 8 tracks, the cassettes, the CDs ... yeah, I kinda liked it.
This is the band and the album that made me want to be a sound engineer! (Thank you Eddie Offord!))

Beatles - Revolver
Rubber Soul
White Album
Sgt Pepper's
Abbey Road
(These albums can turn your world around whether your 8 or 80. And the songs sound simple and true ... and while they're true they aren't simple. There's always a bridge to drive off, but the turnaround brings you back.)

Grateful Dead - American Beauty
(I think I recall the Dead saying this was their least favorite album. I don't care. I loved the songs, all of them, and I liked that they were great songs and didn't have 20 minutes of ego boo for each player. Sometimes discipline is a good thing.)

Leon Russell - Hank Wilson's Back
(1st exposure to traditional country, led to a love of traditional country. Expanded my horizons so far I went out and bought the originals and started listening to Bob Wills, George Jones, Hank, Patsy, shucks, the list just goes on an' on.)

Seatrain - Seatrain
(1st exposure to 'new grass', led to a love of bluegrass. Even before country, blue grass songs were songs that seemed simple but were refined thru time to distill their essence. My only fault with blue grass today is that it became faster and faster so folks could show off their licks and not honor the music.)

Joni Mitchell - Ladies of the Canyon
(I listened to this album over and over. I especially listened to it when I was driving home from a 12am - 8am job and would cue up 'Morgantown' to get past the first few miles.

Elton John/Bernie Taupin - Tumbleweed Connection
(How can 2 Brits capture the American West!?)

CSNY - 4 Way Street
(I could learn the chords and play (badly) for my friends. It made a difference in my life because I knew then I can do this! ... badly.)

Willie Nelson - Stardust
(1st exposure to standards, lead to a love of standards. I went back/forward so now I love listening to Frank Sinatra and Diana Krall)

But we were just talking about albums. Sometimes there are songs that changed your life. You're welcome to leave either in comments.



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: music

0 comments

It's snowy outside, but it's Smokey in here

posted by The Sailor @ 8:22 PM Permalink

I don't like you, But I love you
Seems that I'm always thinking of you
You treat me badly, I love you madly
You've really got a hold on me.

Labels: music

0 comments

Whats So Funny About Peace Love & Understanding?

posted by The Sailor @ 10:14 PM Permalink

But seriously folks, what's so funny about peace love and understanding?



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: music

0 comments

Listen, They're Playing my Song

posted by The Sailor @ 5:03 PM Permalink

Musicians Don’t Want Tunes Used for Torture

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.
[...]
According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo Bay bragged he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of music and lights with four hours of silence and darkness.
[...]
Vance, in a telephone interview from Chicago, said the tactic can make innocent men go mad. According to a lawsuit he has filed, his jailers said he was being held because his employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents. The U.S. military confirms Vance was jailed but won't elaborate because of the lawsuit.

There might be a temptation to make jokes about being subjected to loud music being a form of torture, but it isn't funny, and it is torture.

And there might be a temptation in some folks less evolved to OK torture for them foreign brownish folks, but as noted above, our government also tortures white, christain, veteran, FBI informant, Americans.

More here:

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

and here:

A different kind of hell for one American in Iraq FBI informant imprisoned and treated like an insurgent for 97 days

When Bush said "we don't torture"? He lied.

And his enablers continue to lie over and over.



Cross posted at SteveAudio

Labels: more Bush lies, music, Torture

0 comments

Imagineering ... or ... You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

posted by The Sailor @ 3:30 PM Permalink

Labels: music

1 comments