Tag: Music and Sound

Bullet Points For The Week Of The Idle

It ended up not being that idle. Taxes yesterday. Driver’s license renewal Tuesday. I’m wiped. Must save up energy to pray for Morton tomorrow.

  • Here is the sound of someone singing in 1860. Here is what it means.
  • Funny how people have long memories.Interesting to note that baseball continues to settle – after a couple of years of little ball, now free agency is not as mad as it once was:

    this winter was the 32nd for free agency, and something worth noting occurred. For the first time other than the collusion years of 1985, ’86 and ’87, teams did not race crazily and expensively after free-agent starting pitchers.

    I remember my collusion years.

  • I feel like I have seen too much basketball for some reason. Do you really need that link?
  • The real reason I did not do it.
  • El Tigre has posited (or at least frets) that McCain will pick Romney. I find this highly improbably but in this US election campaign – the boring cannibalistic Democratic contest, the more interesting Republican one that ended too soon – anything can happen now. Apparently Fred Thompson knows he is not in the running for VP.

I have to admit, I have been on the internet less this week than most – could it be that there is a connection between the desk and surfing?

Useful Things To Know In The Coming Depression

While I am dutiful most times, I missed this over at Unkabugs unt Auntie F’s:

It will be important to know, in the coming tight times after twenty years of lavishing ourselves on credit, how to entertain. Music hall matinées will make a comeback, not needing the electricity that other spectacles require. So as you tune up your home mashing and tunning skills, perhaps give a thought to the stringed instrument inventory. Here’s a start.

Friday Bullets For The Membership Drive

So by now I expect you all have given to the NCPR membership drive. I listen to the station in the car, at work and as my wake-up call. I own a banjo and a mandolin because of the show “String Fever” that plays bluegrass. What other station responds to requests for ska? You’d be more like me if you listened too. And isn’t that what it’s all about? Give to NCPR and get yourself pickin’.

  • Apparently 55-70% of Canadians really can’t be bothered with anything anymore:

    The Angus Reid Strategies poll, exclusive to the Star, found 42 per cent were dissatisfied with the Conservative government’s proposals on the environment, while 28 per cent said they were satisfied. The remainder had no opinion. When asked about the Tories’ proposal to stay in Afghanistan until 2011, 40 per cent said they were dissatisfied and 29 per cent said they were satisfied. And while 33 per cent were not happy with the government’s plans for federal-provincial relations – which include restricting federal spending in areas of provincial jurisdiction – the poll found 30 per cent were satisfied.

    You know, if I were the guy who stands a very good chance of being Canada’s only repeat PM never to get a majority, I’d admit to myself that the polls are not going to get better and just go nutty, moving the secret plans for 2009 ahead…just to see. It’s not like things on the other side could get worse…could they?

  • Friday. The day before the fall trip to Syracuse. Another opportunity to figure out how the heck to get from the part of town with the hotels to the part of town with the bit with Clark’s. Sadly, and like Glasgow oddly enough, Syracuse is chopped up by superhighways, interstates that you may notice in this photo. There appears to be a plan to make a better pedestrian route. The current way feels sorta like one of the darker scenes from Blade Runner right now. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how many Buffalonians travel the couple of hours east to take in the game. Last time we went, Wyoming was represented by a couple of guys with goofy bison hats.
  • Science now has proven I am not a boomer.
  • I mentioned in June that Major League Baseball was trying to claim copyright over players’ names and stats. They lost (or rather the companies that bought the rights from MLB) lost:

    Last year the company won a decision by U.S. District Judge Mary Ann Medler, who held that Missouri state law on players’ publicity rights was trumped by a general national policy favoring the full and free exchange of ideas. The appeals court agreed, in an opinion by Judge Morris Arnold, saying the First Amendment right to free speech supersedes state law protecting celebrities’ right to control their likenesses – the “right of publicity.”

  • I really hope that the end result is not that magic is phony.
  • There is a good article in the New Yorker that John G. pointed me to which sets out the recent history of edgy pop music based on the premise that Arcade Fire is kinda dull. A good read but no mention of the impending fourth wave of ska.

Bye Pav

This is the sort of pop culture news to which one has a weird closeness and, yet, dislocation. It is sort of a touchstone as to the disutility of pop culture, as the obit in the Times tells in perhaps a bit too honestly than need be:

And in the early 1990s he began staging Pavarotti and Friends charity concerts, performing side by side with rock stars like Elton John, Sting and Bono and making recordings from these shows. Throughout these years, despite his busy and vocally demanding schedule, his voice remained in unusually good condition well into middle age. Even so, as his stadium concerts and pop collaborations brought him fame well beyond what contemporary opera stars have come to expect, Mr. Pavarotti seemed increasingly willing to accept pedestrian musical standards. By the 1980s he found it difficult to learn new opera roles or even new song repertory for his recitals. And although he planned to spend his final years, in the operatic tradition, performing in a grand worldwide farewell tour, he completed only about half the tour, which began in 2004. Physical ailments, many occasioned by his weight and girth, limited his movement on stage and regularly forced him to cancel performances.

How to celebrate Pavarotti? You will have to decide for yourselves. In the interests of ensuring the word “girth” does not appear in my obit, I will do a sit up in his memory. Maybe the fourth one. And maybe I can avoid having past unfortunate collaborations with Sting and Bono referenced in my obituary, too.

Friday “After The Thunder” Chatfest

Don’t expect much from me today. What a thunder storm. Like the 1812 Symphony without the orchestra: boom, blam, whammo. What with the many mouths a wailing, not a lot of sleep. I almost wrote “flat chest” up there. One more week in August and therefore in summer. Summer really ends around here in October compared to the Maritimes but you know what I mean:

  • Update #2: A neato series of photos from the collection of a new technology museaum in the UK with photos of things like a lump of concrete from 1899 and early 1900s analogue computers including one called “the totalisator” which is my new nickname for me.
  • Update: Brendan Carney, subject of last fall’s overly wrought series on the SU football team, made the pros.
  • Nice to see the scoffing one dimensional right wing bloggers were wrong – again – as the police did infiltrate the wacko protest group at the summit. Darcey’s comment makers display an interesting learning curve but Darcey’s own response is gold:

    Wouldn’t it be crazy if they were undercover protesters pretending to be police officers pretending to be protesters? That would be the ultimate…Or wouldn’t it be weird…if they were police who wanted to be involved in the protest? Maybe their overwhelming zeal was too much for some of the more moderate protesters on the line. This is a good story.

    Cheeky monkey. Far more entertaining that the scoffing one dimensional left wing bloggers

  • What started as a funny idea for naming a sport team seems to end up in a grade seven locker room.
  • If you ever worry about your own beer intake or, conversely, consider it boring check out Ron’s series of posts of drinking his way thought Germany’s Franconia region. Plenty of gems like this:

    Andy met someone he recognised. It turned out to be Dan Shelton and his wife. He was making a documentary about Bamberg or something. I wasn’t concentrating that much on the conversation. I was in my beer zone. Feeling the warm glow of contentment that comes after a morning’s drinking. Very tall. I can remember that. Dan Shelton’s very tall. And annoyingly skinny for someone who works with beer.

  • Amy Winehouse update. I sent portland a copy. Let’s see what happens.
  • The Australian government has been tidying up wikipedia, too.

That is it. Not caffeine in the brain yet.

Friday Linkfest For The End Of July

Just like that it’s gone – the thing you wait for all year. No one waits for August. That is like waiting for the weekend to come so you can sit on Sunday afternoon thinking about the workweek to come.

  • Big Toe Update: really – big toe.
  • Update: Ben points out why Hillary is very likely going to be the next President – the responsibility gene.
  • I don’t know if this should make me cry or make me laugh.
  • How to make pals? Hit them up for money:

    Another Conservative official who was approached said in political parties, “these things normally should not have to be asked for.” The official said he already contributes to the party and the request has exacerbated uncomfortable relations between the PMO and some ministerial offices.

    What is it about these guys that they seek out and destroy goodwill wherever they go.

  • Rob shares in interesting warning. As you know, Rob is much more keen on the new digital order but I appreciate how he is learning about it before our eyes:

    It’s almost impossible to buy music with no frame of reference. There were no hits, no recommendations, no “if you like x, you’ll like y”. I realized that the time it would take to decide if I liked an album was probably worth more than the $3 it would cost to buy one–in other words, not even worth it for “free.” Musicians, bloggers, writers–if you’re toiling in the long tail, getting stuck at zero is now a real possibility. Being just like the other guys but trying harder is less of an effective strategy than ever before.

    Yes, the long tail has plenty of room at zero. They didn’t mention that bit. Without authority nothing is authoritative. Without guidance we are unguided. How do you do that in the million person village? I am not saying not to do it. Nick is quite right about the importance of doing. But how does one do when the only venues come with sidewalks? Does it matter?

  • Truly, the Kitty of Dis.
  • Patty Smith is playing “Because the Night” live on CBS’s The Early Show, given seven seconds in passing during a promo introduction for the eight am news. A part of me just died.

That is it. Maybe more later. Off to the office on a nice sunny day.

Chatfest Friday Style With Bullets

Can there be 100 comments without ry? That was the question I asked myself last night. We have settled into a kind rapport even with our differences. Is this middle age? Yesterday at the beer blog, I cited a post that I wrote in October 2003. That’s a long time ago. When do blogs hit middle age?

  • Blackness Update: Connie found guilty on four counts…those being criminal counts…no pardon expected.
  • …nuttin’…sympatico is choppy this mornng…uh, oh…
  • Lunch is approaching Update: I caught this guy on one of the morning news shows and now believe that Jim Early’s work on North Carolina BBQ could be a key to understanding the culture of the Western World.
  • Global warming may be good news for Ontario as long as we all plant ash trees now!
  • I think this is the blog that sets the standards for all blogs of a certain class of blogs. Did people do this before there was a medium to record that they were doing it?
  • PEI is all a dither. What else is new? Well, I will tell you one thing that is new – apparently a rock band said “fuck” during a concert and the entire community is going last-scene-of-Frankenstein. Chris has the whole story. There is a law in PEI that sets out how to do a rock concert and this is the only way you are supposed to do it under the Rock Performances Act (Marine), RSPEI 1957, ss 87-213.

Bullets postponed until bandwith available.

Update: Why does my broadband cut out in thunder and lightning? Does it rely on AM radio at somepoint between here and there?

  • This is nuts:

    The Harper government has been told to stop referring to “fighting terrorism” and the Sept. 11 attacks, and to banish the phrase “cut and run” from its vocabulary if it is to persuade a skeptical public that the military mission in Afghanistan is worth pursuing.

    If we are going to ask our youth to fight, speak about what they are fighting for. If you disagree, speak about the nature of your disagreement strongly. I may not vote for you but I will respect your free expression of your view. But for God’s sake, leave the PR consultants out of this. And as for not connecting 9/11 to Afghanistan…are you crazy?!?! Has no one any memory of the BBC leading the charge into Kabul? That is the theatre where all the resources of the Iraq war should have been focused. Offer me war bonds.

White Stripes Road Trip

This is cool. My buddy Dave went to see them in the Yukon in a park. But that was sort of dullsville on this trip:

Any rock star who won’t get out of bed for less than 10,000 people should ponder the counter-example of the White Stripes. The duo from Detroit has played free shows for small groups of hastily assembled fans at nearly every stop on their “ocean to permafrost” tour of Canada. They’ve played youth centres in Burnaby and Edmonton, a park in Whitehorse and even a city bus in Winnipeg. In each case, the gig was arranged only hours in advance, with strict instructions from the band’s management not to tell the media. Ed Whitehead, who co-owns two bowling alleys in Saskatoon, returned a call on Saturday from the Stripes’ road manager, who wanted to know if it would be okay for Jack and Meg White to play a short set at the Eastview Lanes.

The trouble with the YouTube I-am-a-rock-star with 500 fans model is that no one cares. And no one cares because there is no performance. Sure there is a bar and a crowd and CDs being sold at the back and to hell with management and record companies and the whole Lavern and Shirley making it my way thing but at the end of the day Elvis and Johnny Rotten and Mick Jagger (when he was a decent age to actual mean anything) performed and made this civilization of ours take notice.