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Category: Music

“Tenth Doctor: The Musical”

As someone in the framing sequence might say, “Brilliant!”

Margie will be amused to know that I recognize all — well, most — of the tunes.

Unblogged Bits for Thu, 22 Apr 2010, 2:01AM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. Leonard Nimoy Retiring, Won’t Star in ‘Trek’ Sequel – I’ve very much enjoyed the voice-overs he’s done for Star Trek Online.
  2. Dem. Sen. Carper: Dems should drop areas of disagreement from Wall St. reform bill – So the way to move forward is to let the minority dictate to the majority what should or shouldn’t be in a bill. Um … right.
  3. Price of Ignoring ToS Details: Your Soul – Not at all surprising. What percentage of people (my guess: low single digits) actually read all the EULA information during an installation? (And, no, I don’t, either.)
  4. Facebook Used To Make Partners Delete Your Data After 24 Hrs. No Longer. – I don’t have anything on Facebook that worries me, and I decline to join in any games or applications that want to access my profile. That said, I’d never dream of making it my primary social platform.
  5. Glenn Beck, the IMF, and the “Global V-A-T” “prison” conspiracy | Media Matters for America – The Rodeo Clown meets Global Financial Policy. Hilarity ensues.
  6. Pope Urban Novak II – Right! We must protect the site of the Sermon on the Mount, and act as Blessed Peacemakers by BOMBING THE SNOT OUT OF IRAN! Just like Jesus would do!
  7. Army considers rescinding invitation to evangelist – Yahoo! News – It’s highly inappropriate to invite a speaker to the Pentagon who refers to Islam as “a very evil and wicked religion” — not least of which because (a) Muslims serve in the military, and (b) we have military posted in (and ostensibly in service to the people of) Muslim countries. That’s not censorship — that’s common sense. (Plus: why the hell does the Pentagon have a guest speaker for the National Day of Prayer in the first place?)
  8. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro is on a mission to rehabilitate George W. Bush’s reputation. – By Jordan Michael Smith – Slate Magazine – Money quote of Mr Scott: “Bush is clearly very smart. And you don’t need to be a genius to be president — you need good leadership skills and good instincts.”
  9. Barbershop Ewoks – I love Barbershop. I love Star Wars. I love … well, I appreciate Star Wars Barbershop.

Unblogged Bits for Fri, 2 Apr 2010, 8:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. 5 Ways The Google Book Settlement Will Change The Future of Reading [Publishing]: Annalee Newitz
  2. Preacher Compares Attacks on Pope to Anti – Semitism – NYTimes.com – The more the Vatican criticizes the attacks being made — painting itself as victim instead of the children who were abused — the more credibility and sympathy it loses. And, on another note, hiding behind what your aide did on your behalf is hardly a substantive defense. “The buck stops here,” as Truman put it.
  3. Michele Bachmann: Nancy Pelosi Tried To Incite Something By The Way She Crossed The Street – “And if she’d been raped it would have been her fault, too.”
  4. KFC’s Bacon Sandwich On Fried Chicken “Bread” Starts Killing People Nationwide April 12 – The O.R. one is the same calories and fat as a Big Mac (but twice the sodium). Maybe too much of a good thing.
  5. Star Trek Re-Watch: “What Men Dare Do” – One of the lengthiest and most nicely done April Fool bits I saw all day: part of Tor’s ST:TOS retrospective, in this case a fake TOS episode review. Brilliant.
  6. Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music – I would rather eat broken glass than fill the coffers of the RIAA … unless, of course, if it were at the expense of ClearChannel. Hrm. While this will likely hurt small broadcast stations (and public radio) more than Big Broadcasting, it’s also clearly a case where something needs to be done to rationalize both the domestic and international markets.
  7. Wes Anderson Is the Hipstery Lord of the Rings – Amazing what a different sound track and some clever cuts will do to a trailer. Amusing.
  8. Topless Robot – The 8 Most Common Ways D&D Characters Die – That’s pretty much the gamut all right.
  9. Improved comment collapsing for Google Buzz posts – Nice. I’m still not settled in my use of Buzz, as it falls sort of between GReader and Twitter without really replacing either. But for what I do use it for, this will be helpful.
  10. Pineberry to Make Debut in U.K. Stores – Hmmmm … need to keep my eyes open for these here in the States. Though I’m generally not a big fan of fresh fruit.
  11. RNC’s Filings Reveal Creative Definitions Of ‘Office Supplies’ – Okay, okay, it’s probably (maybe) just expenses entered under the wrong account code (as someone who both does expense reports and tries to reconcile departmental expenses vs. budgets, I’ve seen this happen a zillion times). That said, it’s still damned funny.
  12. Palin’s 20 House Dem Targets Use Her As A Fundraising Ploy – I suspect her involvement will get more traction from Democrats than Republicans.
  13. Indiana Threatened By Giant Poop Bubbles, For Realsies
  14. Northeast Hit With Devastating Floods, As Federal Flood Insurance Expires Due To GOP Obstruction – Well played, GOP! Let’s all remember this next fall!
  15. Erickson: I’ll ‘pull out my wife’s shotgun’ if someone comes to my door for the American Community Survey. – To summarize: “I’m not advocating killing census workers. I’m advocating threatening to kill them with a shotgun if they come onto my property.” That’s a remarkably nuanced approach for a Erickson.
  16. Scott Roeder gets Hard 50 in murder of abortion provider George Tiller | Featured Story | Wichita Eagle
  17. Can Animals Be Gay? – NYTimes.com – An interesting (and long) article on same-sex mating and social behavior in a remarkably lengthy list of species. That complicates the “‘Tain’t Natural!” argument (though it can still be noted that it’s less usual than male-female activity), but, then, that’s never been the point, to me, of why we should (or shouldn’t) accept homosexual behavior in humans, which boils down to, “Why the heck shouldn’t we? Where’s the harm?” (Note: “I think it’s icky” is not an actual harm.)

TV Theme Songs

I’ve a great fondness for TV theme songs. Positive associations with shows I like + repetition each week = fondness in my music book.

While I’m not so much into theme song covers, here‘s a duo doing a very nice job of doing 22 of them in 7 minutes.

Unblogged Bits for Fri, 5 Mar 2010, 7:00PM

Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries ….

  1. They still don’t know what Medicare is – Still more “keep the government’s hands off of Medicare!” silliness.
  2. McCain slips a little further from seriousness: Steve Benen
  3. Matthew Yglesias » Pentagon Shooting – A fine (and backhandedly positive) comment about how the nation doesn’t freak out when it’s a non-Muslim killer going on the rampage. “Wild overreactions and wholesale reconfigurations of the constitution, of US foreign policy, or of daily life are considered off the table by definition. And rightly so!” If only we were so relatively rational about the other cases.
  4. Sony wants to patent ‘feature erosion’ in game demos, illustrates the idea vividly – It seems to me that, rather than feeling an urge to pony up and buy the game, instead it would leave me feeling more and more frustrated against it, making me less likely to buy.
  5. What Would You Do For $5? – That’s actually really clever. I’ll be curious to see how it does.
  6. What Ten C-17 Cargo Planes the Military Doesn’t Want Would Buy Us : Mike the Mad Biologist – But … but … the JOBS …! Against terrorists! And … and … ACORN!
  7. ‘Lone wolf’ anti-government extremist opens fire at the Pentagon. But let’s not call it terrorism.: David Neiwert
  8. IHOP ad from 1969 will melt your brain – I’m sure some ad exec sold this to IHOP with the pitch, “In the future, ALL commercials will look like this!”
  9. What’s the Harm? Answer: Pentagon Gunman was a 9/11 Truther – The truth will prevail — but it won’t necessarily prevail without blood, toil, tears and sweat. Not everyone who believes something screwy is going to go homicidal — but certainly the sort of folks we see go on these homicidal rampages (organized or not) believe something screwy.
  10. The full-scale collapse: From Murrow to Blitzer – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com – So I guess one has to ask — “Does Wolf Blitzer still beat his wife? Let’s examine both sides of that allegation …”
  11. This Is What Happens When The Religious Right Takes Over Your State – Nice. “Not only are we not going to ensure we don’t discriminate against them, we’re going to make sure that nobody else protects them from discrimination, either.” Time to break out the “Virginia is for Haters” bumper stickers again, sadly.
  12. AFA’s Bryan Fischer Explains That’s He’s The Reasonable One: Kyle
  13. Boulder Catholic school denies preschooler with lesbian parents – The Denver Post – Because, you know, Jesus had the Apostles do background checks on all those children he suffered to come unto Him, right? Nice job, SHJ — what could have been a teachable moment … has become a teachable moment, only with a pretty obnoxious lesson.
  14. 6 Historic Acts of Revenge That Put ‘Kill Bill’ to Shame | Cracked.com – Boy, haven’t you ever just wanted to be able to do so something like these folks did?
  15. Tourist slammed over breaking into protected Maori site – The only positive thing I can say about this story of asshattery is thank God it wasn’t an American (this time).
  16. Pam’s House Blend:: Delusional Collusion – Roy Ashburn’s closet was protected by newspapers, local gays – I concur with George — people’s private lives are their private lives — but when they make a point of hypocritically delving into the private lives of others to condemn them for what they do themselves … they are fair game.
  17. Arizonans flush with anger over loss of rest stops – The Denver Post – Hey, Arizona voters — just remember that next time some pol tells you that “government isn’t the solution, it’s the problem.”
  18. Wisconsin bike Trek sues Marin wine Trek – And, for a brief moment, sanity prevails …
  19. Late Night Music Club – Happy Birthday Antonio Vivaldi – Happy Birthday, Antonio – a man for Four Seasons …
  20. Greg Lewis: Luntz inadvertently shows why Fox News prefers to call reconciliation the “nuclear option” – Words mean things. And notice which side usually seems to be the one to use violent, aggressive, “nuclear” words in politics.

Smoke on the Japanese Water

Just to add some surreality to your day …

Yes, “Smoke on the Water,” Japanese-style, at a concert in commemoration of the Great Fire of Edo, 250 years ago. I’m not sure about the singing, but the orchestration is awesome.

“This Too Shall Pass,” a Music Video by way of Rube Goldberg

Okay, whatever you may think of the music (I enjoyed it moderately, but everyone’s taste varies), the setup for this, plus the camera work, is worth spending four minutes of your life to see.

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of “This Too Shall Pass” off of the album “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky”. The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The “machine” was designed and built by the band, along with members of Synn Labs ( http://syynlabs.com/ ) over the course of several months.

Bravo, people.

Wherein Dave makes a goofy, uninformed prediction of the future of literary publishing

The 45rpm single
The 45rpm single

In a discussion with Margie and Mary this evening …

Once upon a time — with the 45 — music was all about the singles (and, secondarily, the flip-side, but that wasn’t important).  When the 45 gave way to the 33 … and then to the cassette … and then to the CD … the album became God.

And with the introduction of digital music, and the iTunes store, and so forth, suddenly we can now easily acquire singles again, and the album is quickly fading into commercial obscurity.

Some folks think that’s a Good Thing.  “At last! We don’t have to buy music we don’t want in order to get the single track by this artist that we do want!  We can just buy the big hit, and not be forced to get an album of fill-in dreck.”

Me? As much as I enjoy the Big Hits, I’ve found that, with familiarity, in many cases my favorite tunes on a given CD are not what hit the Top 40.  And if I hadn’t been “forced” to buy the whole album, I would never have listened to them, let alone bought them.  Serendipity is a wonderful thing …

When I was growing up, a lot of the SF I read was collections of short stories, most of them from various SF magazines past and present.

SF magazines have been in a lot of trouble over the past (mumble mumble) decades, and collections of SF shorts have  grown less and less popular (as measured by shelf space at the local Buns & Noodle).  Instead, we get full-length novels.  And, in fact, not just full-length novels, but trilogies and longer series.  Everything is about buy-in to tales that max out the form.

But now we have a publishing revolution in the electronic form … and everyone is looking at marketing their works through the eRealm — to formal readers like Kindle or Nook, or through PDFs and other open forms.

So …

When will we see the resurgence of the short story and novella?

If a novel by Hot Author X is worth $9.99 on Kindle, would folks be interested in seeing a short story by Hot Author X for $1?  How about trying out a short story by Unknown Author Z for $1?  How about for 50 cents?

I’m trying to map music to lit here.  We had collections of short stories, based on magazine formats, for many years, paralleling 78 then 45 singles.  Then, once the the publishing industry stabilized, we had novels and longer series at the fore, analogous to albums (whether linked by concept or not).

So if the music industry has shifted again to the cheap single, stripping acceptance of creations down to the single, short, digestible, most popular creative act … wny not a resurgence of the short story for peanuts?

I’m not arguing that’s necessarily a good thing (I enjoy novels, novel series, and, as noted, albums).  But it seems a logical progression to me.

(It is altogether likely that I am about the 25,000th person to think of this. But I don’t recall reading anyone saying it, so I offer it as my own uninformed bit of industry speculation. Those with more wisdom as to such things, feel free to take pot shots.)

A really big shew

Last night we had a “Talent Show Dinner” down at Good Shepherd– which turned into quite an extravaganza, pulling in about 140 people, which was about twice as many as I thought would attend.

I got to MC the affair for the most part, which was fun, if a bit challenging (as I’m generally awful with names), and we had a karaoke contest, a talent show, some professional singing, and a bit of joke telling.

I regaled the crowd with a rendition of Tom Lehrer’s Irish Ballad, which was well-received (even among those who’d never heard of Tom Lehrer (egad!).

We also started out with a spaghetti sauce competition, which I oversaw, and which Margie judged in. Fun.

My only regret of the evening was that it ran long enough that only a few people chose to avail themselves of telling the jokes I’d collected for people to tell.

A fun time for all in attendance.

Music, Maestro!

Katherine auditioned for, and got, a solo at the 4th Grade concert. She has the opening verse of “Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay” (performed below by Danny and the Juniors):

 

Woot!

Music, maestro!

So something I almost forgot in my move to my new PC was to verify that, as I listen to music during the Blogathon, I can post those little annoying “I’m listening to” messages.

Listening to: John Barry, “Six Robots” (The Black Hole (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack))) 

And I discovered that Linear wasn’t posting them. Which made me track down the Linear option to do so, which led to the revelation that it required a plug-in to iTunes, which link I clicked on and …

Got a 404 error. File not found. And, in fact, site not found.

The plugin was called WMPtunelog, so I did some Googling. Everything kept bringing me back to the 404 page, until I dug up that it was written by Bill Zeller of Zempt fame, which led me to look that up, and …

Anyway, for the record (and my future reference), WMPtunelog (as well as the WinAmp-friendly WMPamplog) can be found here now. 

Total Eclipse of the — wha –?

I used to love this song, but I don’t think I’ve every watched the music video. I’ll never be able to listen to is again without think of this dubbed music video version.

 

Second-funniest thing I’ve seen this week.

The Belgian Train Stations are alive …

… with The Sound of Music …

 

Cool. 

Apparently the music number, staged at the Antwerp central rail station, was part of some reality show in Belgium. 

I need to find our copy of The Sound of Music and share the original with Katherine. I think she’d enjoy it.

Unblogged Bits for Friday, 10 April 2009

Links that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries …

Because … I must … share …

Since this has INFESTED THE BRAINS of my family, and the CUTE VOICES insist that, even though I posted a link about it a couple of days back, WE MUST SPREAD THEIR EVIL EARWORMS to EVERYONE …

Yes, it’s the Nom-Nom-Nom Bunny Song. And now, you, too, are DOOOOMED to hear it in your head over, and Over, and OVER, MWAH-HA-HAAAAAAH!!!

(via Boing-Boing)

 

UPDATE: But wait … was Teh Cute … STOLEN from … THIS?! Yes! Yes it is! Parry Gripp (who also composed, of all things, the title tune to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) did the Nom Nom Nom music (available for free) and the original YouTube video.

And now the music is on my iPod and IT WILL NEVER LET ME GOOOOOOOOO!!!!

RIP Maurice Jarre

Maurice Jarre, Oscar-winning movie (and TV) composer has died at age 84. His works that I particularly loved were the soundtracks for Lawrence of Arabia, and the Jesus of Nazareth and Shogun TV mini-series.

Teeny-tiny music video

Tilt-shift photography is a technique which can be used, among other things, to give a false appearance of miniatures. Throw in some sped up action, one can spend half their time wondering if it’s real, or fake. As in this very cool (and fun) video, Bathtub IV.


Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

(via BoingBoing & Les) 

 

One-two-three, one-two-three

From today’s Forgotten English page-a-day calendar (by Jeffrey Kacirk), we learn:

The Waltz was forbidden on about this date in 1799 in parts Switzerland and Germany. 

Yes, it’s the Waltz … the Forbidden Dance!

Through the 18th century, Europeans were inclined toward complex dances, such as the gavotte, minuet, and quadrille, which maintained the appearance of sexual propriety. But by 1733 the waltz, the name derived from the Italian volver, to revolve, had become popular in Vienna. It was developed from the medieval weller, or turning dances of alpine Austrian and Bavarian peasants, whose ancient yodeling melodies formed their foundations.

Aha! Those lascivious Austrian yodelers! I knew they were behind this!

But many were adamantly opposed to this risqué dance, which encouraged couples to hold each other in unprecedented embrace.

Presumably unprecedented on the dance floor, and by “proper” people.

In July 1816 the London Times wrote scornfully on the waltz’s recent introduction at a royal ball: “So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice. But now that it is forced on the respectable classes of society, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”

Remember that next time someone is ranting about “kids and their crazy dances these days,” or bemoans the deterioration of popular culture into the morass of licentiousness and debauchery.

A ripping good time!

So amidst other things I’ve been doing this afternoon, having gotten my iTunes library onto an external drive and so having plenty of room there, I played catch-up on ripping some CDs received but not yet gotten into said library.

To wit …

  • Battlefield Band, Across the Borders
  • Murray Gold, Doctor Who, Series 3
  • Misc., Martini Mix
  • Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, Schubert’s Mass #2 and #6
  • Kingston Trio, Capitol Collector’s Series
  • The Nylons, Harmony: The Christmas Songs
  • “Weird Al” Yankovic, Poodle Hat
  • Chanticleer, Sing We Christmas
  • Harry Gregson-Williams, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas

Yay.

Moving iTunes to an external hard drive

I finally found some instructions for doing something I’d been wanting to do for some time — shift my 25Gb iTunes library from my notebook hard drive to an external hard drive.

The instructions were actually official Apple notes. I went through the steps, very straightforwardly, and left it all running overnight. Essentially, it’s just changing the location for the music library to the new drive, then running the Consolidate Library function. So far everything is working just fine.

What I haven’t done is taken this next step, which is moving the iTunes library files (as opposed to the music files they point to) to the external drive. I’m thinking I should do so (it would make the music completely portable). I just haven’t done it yet.

What’s a bigger question is what to do with half my hard drive free again …