The good folks behind the web site Open Culture recently did a story on the surreal 1933 animation of Snow White (shown above). The only thing more fascinating than the story of the video is the video itself. Once you see it, you’ll never forget it.
Highly recommended.
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Tagged bettyboop, cabcalloway, music, OpenCulture, youtube
The great conductor Seiji Ozawa died last week. The New York Times has his obit here. If you don’t know much about him, I recommend you read that obiturary.
Regardless of how much you knew of the man, if you haven’t read it already, I hope you have the chance to read the book he did with Haruki Murakami, Absolutely on Music. Anyone who loves music will get something out of this book, which is a document of six conversations the two men had. (It’s a podcast before they were a thing, so to speak.) And no you don’t have to be an expert in classical music to get enjoyment from reading it.
Here’s a review of the book. And here more on the book from the publisher.
Get a copy today.
Comments Off on Do you love music? Then you want to read Absolutely on Music by Murakami and Ozawa
Posted in music
Tagged classicalmusic, murakami, music
Every so often remnants from the 80s pop up in my feed. When something does stick out like a thread and I pull on it, more good 80s things appear.
For instance, things like this story on Angelina Jolie taking over Basquiat’s former NYC studio that lead me to a good post on Jean Michel Basquiat’s notebooks which is JAM PACKED with good stuff on him.
Or this thing in Martha Stewart on how 80s decor home trends are back that led me to this piece on one woman’s home full of Memphis design (so 80s!)
Same with tech. I went from this excellent interview on Robert Longo where he talks about many things such as the remaking of Johnny Mnemonic into black and white, That led to me reading how modern software is bringing back the timex datalink, a device I loved, to this great video of this guy living with 1980s tech for a week! Awesome.
Other great threads that came out of my 80s unravelling was this piece on how Sinead O’connor changed Ireland, these fantastic photos of Blitz Club in London by Andrew Holligan, and this interview of the singular Debbie Harry who says sex is what makes everything happen and more. This blog by Jamie Bradburn on Toronto in 1980s is a whole rabbit hole in and of itself.
The number of times the 80s appears in my feed is less and less. So whenever I find a bunch of them, I will of course be writing about them. 🙂
(Top image from the story on Memphis; bottom image from the substack on Basquiat’s notes)
What is that, you say? Let Open Culture explain:
The music collective Playing for Change is back. This time, they have Jackson Browne performing his 1970s hit, “Doctor, My Eyes,” supported by musicians from Brazil, Jamaica, India, Puerto Rico, France and beyond. Browne is also joined by Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel, who played on the original 1972 song, and they still sound amazing.
They really do sound amazing. So many musicians I have loved have lost their voice, but Browne sounds as good as he ever did.
Don’t believe me? Here he is in 1978 doing it live:
Somewhere in between June 1st, 1983 when the album Speaking in Tongues was released and December, 1983 when “Stop Making Sense” was filmed, Talking Heads and their extended band went on David Letterman to perform two of their songs: “Burning Down the House” and “I Zimbra”.
If you are a fan of the film, you’ll enjoy these two performances. Already you can see echoes of what will you will see in the show. Indeed, other than Dolette McDonald being replaced by Edna Holt, everyone on stage at Letterman appears in the film.
That was televised in the beginning of July, one month after the record was released. Already the band is pretty tight. They had months of shows to do before Jonathan Demme started filming. No wonder the performances in the film were superb.
As for “I Zimbra”, if you think you hadn’t seen it in the original concert film, you’d be correct. The band did perform it, and it was intended to be in the film, but it was taken out. Good news, it is included in the recent rerelease of the film (which I wrote about, here).
Here’s “I Zimbra”
and here’s “Burning Down the House”
“Stop Making Sense” is making a comeback this September, 40 years after it’s initial release. There’s an expanded audio album out today, and a new version of the film premiered at TIFF this Monday.
To some it may seem like a comeback, but for many like me, it never left. This film has meant so much to me in my life: it’s like a good friend I met in college who stayed close to me four decades later. I can watch it any time, anywhere, and I often have since it first came out. Unlike me, it’s timeless, even four decades later.
But don’t just take my word on it. Read this great piece by Jon Pareles in The New York Times, Talking Heads on the Return of ‘Stop Making Sense’, and you should see why I think so highly of it.
One thing he seems to bypass that makes the film great is the fact that it was directed by Jonathan Demme. Demme was coming into his own when he filmed it, not unlike Martin Scorsese was when he made “The Last Waltz” with the Band. His talent is what transforms a great show into a great film. Later Demme went on to make other concert films of Neil Young and Justin Timberlake, but neither of those had the impact that “Stop Making Sense” did. You need a groundbreaking show for that.
And it was groundbreaking. Before the cameras start, David Byrne already had a vision of what it would be like. He had been gathering ideas from other artists like Robert Wilson (whose lighting designer, Beverly Emmons, he used) and Twyla Tharp (worked with her on The Catherine Wheel), not to mention Japanese Kabuki theatre (where he got the idea for the Big Suit). He had a vision of how everyone should look on stage (dressed in drab grays). He had a storyboard for each song performed. And while he didn’t have a choreographer, he had a ton of talented performers who brought their own moves to the performance. All that, combined with the narrative of the film, makes it compelling to watch.
Pareles believes the narrative is…”of a freaked-out loner who eventually finds joy in community. The concert starts with Byrne singing “Psycho Killer” alone, to a drum-machine track, with a sociopathic stare. By the end of the show, he’s surrounded by singing, dancing, smiling musicians and singers, carried by one groove after another.” And that is partially the narrative. But it’s also a narrative of the band itself, a story of a small stiff group of “slightly angsty white” art school students that grew into a large ensemble capable of fluidly and energetically incorporating punk, funk, new age, world, R&B…you name it…onto one stage for 90 minutes of eclectic dance music. It’s smart, it’s gotta beat, and you can dance to it.
If you think of “Stop Making Sense” as a documentary or an art piece, you’ll be missing out on the fun. And fun it is. It’s been playing off and on at the Bloor Cinema / Hot Doc cinema on Bloor near Bathurst in Toronto since the time it came out, and everytime people go they treat it as more like a concert than a film. If you ever have the chance to see the it in that theatre, grab a ticket and an adult beverage and you’ll see what I mean.
I think the film is best described by the second song in the film, “Heaven”. Just like in song, the band in this film plays your favorite song. Everyone is there. When the film is over, everyone leaves, only to return to the next showing of it. It plays again, exactly the same. It will not be any different. Byrne wrote, “It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all, could be so exciting, could be so much fun”. And yet it is. The film is heaven to me.
Like Austin Kleon, I found the Wham! documentary a “delight”. He adds (and it’s true) that it is “tight, light, well-edited, and stylistically coherent”. It’s also 90 minutes, and on Netflix. If want to watch something good to watch this week, make it that.
There’s no spoilers here but I must say I found the documentary surprising in several ways. Surprised at how different the men were than I thought they were. Surprised they achieved fame well before fortune. Surprised how lots of things I thought about their career and their music were very different than I imagined.
The documentary also cleared up one of the biggest mysteries I had about the band, which was what was the point of Andrew Ridgeley in Wham. I just thought he was some weird side performer that managed to get stuck to George Michael. After watching this, I can see there would be no George Michael without Andrew Ridgeley. The evolution of Michael from shy guy to major star would not have been possible without Ridgeley and Wham.
There’s been a number of good reviews of the documentary. This take at the New York Times I found interesting, especially this comment: “born during Motown’s ascent in the early 1960s and, in adolescence, bonded to each other as disco was handing the party baton to new wave and rap. They synthesized it all (plus a little Barry Manilow and Freddie Mercury, and some Billy Joel) into a genre whose only other alchemists, really, were Hall and Oates.” Once that thought is stuck in your brain, you can clearly hear all the influences Wham! bleeding into their music.
Besides that, this piece from the San Francisco Chronicle really understands the two men. This review at rogerebert.com was the one I most agreed with. Here’s something from the Guardian for those who like that sort of thing.
I’m glad Ridgeley is having a moment. He seems like he deserves it. More from him, here.
All that said, go watch it. You’ll be glad you did.
McCartney has always been one to explore new ideas. So it doesn’t surprise me to discover that he used AI, which he said enabled him on a ‘final’ Beatles song. Unlike others who might muck about and try to create something Beatlesque with AI, he argues that there is nothing artificial in the “new” Beatles song made using this technology. If you read the two pieces, you’ll likely agree. I did. AI was just an additional instrument Paul used to create music.
While he’s been in the realm of science fiction with his AI project, he’s also been going back in time using photographs to produce a new book. He writes about the book, “1964: Eyes of the Storm – Photographs and Reflections” in the Guardian, here and in The Atlantic, here.
Regardless of what he is using, here’s a good essay by Austin Kleon on McCartney’s creative process: McCartney on not knowing and doing it now. McCartney often gets dinged for his creative failures, but I would argue he has been so massively successful because he tries and fails often enough and he does not stop whenever so called failure occurs. (It helps that things that were once considered failures (e.g., McCartney I and II) turn out later to be considered successes.)
Here’s to Paul successfully living to be a 100 and providing us more great creative works.
(Image of McCartney recording McCartney II, via Austin Kleon’s site)
I have always been envious of New Yorkers and their Metropolitan Opera House. Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company is planning to perform 7 operas next season (and that’s good). Meanwhile the Met in 2022-23 performed 22. With that many performances going throughout the year you could sometimes feast on four different operas in a weekend! And it’s not just quantity: the greatest performers in the world are appearing in those shows. I cannot be alone in my envy and admiration of it all and imagining it to be never ending era.
So I was somewhat shocked to read that we may be at the end of that era, according to this piece in The New York Times:
Ticket sales have been robust for some new productions, even of contemporary works. But revivals, less obviously newsworthy and less widely promoted, are no longer sure things — especially slightly off-the-beaten-path stuff like Mozart’s “Idomeneo” or Verdi’s “Don Carlo.”
And I was disturbed to read this:
In an attempt to make ends meet, the Met has raided its endowment and plans to put on 10 percent fewer performances next season, which will feature just 18 staged operas (six of them written in the past 30 years). The days of being America’s grand repertory company, of 20-plus titles a year, could be slowly entering the rearview mirror.
Besides less new stuff, it sounds like some of the old stuff is being put out to pasture:
So it was fitting that, last month, the Met said farewell to one of the shows that typified the era that’s ending: its “Aida” from the 1980s. The production was typical Met: hardly cheap but sturdy and flexible, into which you could toss singers with relatively little rehearsal. The company’s model has depended on a core of stagings of the standards like this — ones which could be mounted, and sell well, year after year. If there’s less of a year-after-year opera audience, though, the only solution may be to do less.
All signs point to the beginning of a decline of opera at the Met. Now perhaps this is a just a temporary decline brought on by the pandemic and our change of behaviors. But I fear it is not.
If you are in New York (or anywhere), make plans to go to an opera. Even if you know nothing about it, an evening at the Met is always magical.
(Photo Credit: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)
Early in my blogging days, I would post music on Friday Nights. I stopped because so many videos got pulled and my blog is full of broken links as a result.
However, this song has stuck in my head and I like it, so here goes nothing. 🙂
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Posted in music
Tagged Canada, music, music youtube
For a long time I held the common view that there was two Paul McCartneys: the Beatles one and the solo one. This view also states that once he went solo, he went from making great music to making bad music. Sure there were exceptions (Maybe I’m Amazed, Band on the Run), but that was the view.
That view was supported by many people, starting with John Lennon and many of the music press writing in the 70s and 80s. How could it be wrong? Even a fan of Paul like me often thought so.
Well it was wrong and I was wrong too. I came to that conclusion after watching Get Back. Watching Get Back, I was struck by the continuum of the Beatles and their music. In the documentary you hear snippets of songs that wouldn’t come into their own until later albums. You hear them play old songs as they try and finish the new songs. It’s all sonically fluid and connected. Paul’s music –before and after the breakup — is very much of that continuum. There is no switch that suddenly deprives him if his talent. He does lose the feedback and the guidance of the others, especially John’s, and no doubt that hurt him. But his ability to write a song and perform a song remains strong.
I thought of that some more after spending time relistening to songs from McCartney I. Songs I had dismissed as bad I gave a relisten to. Listened to the music of the guy who performed so well on Get Back, the music of the guy who went on to record Abbey Road. The talent is strong and steady on those solo records, despite some ups and downs.
I’ve often contended that if you combined the best of the Beatles solo work from the 70s and just kept the best and put in on 3 or 4 recordings, you would have music as good as anything they made in the 60s. In some cases even better.
The talent was still there. The music was still good. For all them. Including Paul.
It’s funny and good and strange how something new can remind you of something very old that you barely remember. That happened to me recently.
In the early 70s (1972-4) there was a TV documentary show on CBC called Of All People. It was a simple show that did short profiles of everyday Canadians.
I would watch it as a preteen with my Dad, and afterwards we would talk about what we saw and how we thought about it. It was a great show to watch as a kid (and with your kid). I think it shaped my worldview to some degree. This idea, that a worthwhile life can be anything and anywhere, was a main theme of the series, and this idea has stuck with me ever since.
It was a lovely show. Watching each episode, you were left feeling better about people and the world. I wish I could write more about it and share more about it, but barely anything exists online.
And I thought of all that again when I listened to Denison Witmer’s new song, “It’s OK to Live a Quiet Life”. The people in Of All People lived lives that were quiet and fine and good. You can live such a life too. It’s OK. Maybe more than OK. But OK is good too.
Here’s two versions of his song. For A:
and E:
Go and listen to them on your favorite music service via this link.
You can find out more about Denison and his other work, here.
After 24 years, one of my favorite bands has released a new album. It’s incredible that not only has this happened after a quarter of a century, but that it has managed to do so well. It’s incredible and fantastic.
Leading up to the release, they’ve received some great reviews and lots of good press. You can read some of that here in the New York Times, or in the Guardian (here and here), or Pitchfork.
With the release of this new album, I can think of them as being of three times. One time is Now, of course, in the 2020s. A second time is the 1990s. In that time they were at their peak. Here you can see them performing in 1999, just before what I thought was then end (as no doubt many people did):
The third time – the 1980s – is the time I remember them most fondly. That was the time they were just starting. Here’s some rare footage of them from then:
Pick up Fuse when you can. Meanwhile, if you are a Spotify user, here’s their Complete Discography, I believe. Give Fuse and more a listen, there.
Thursday is a great day to be productive: you just got over hump day (i.e., Wednesday) and if you can get a lot done today, you can feel more relaxed as you head into Friday and then the weekend.
If you have your own playlists, I recommend you put them on. If you do not, that head over to domino.com and read this: A Good WFH Playlist Is the Difference Between a Slow Day and a Productive One. They have a number of lists from various people: one of them is bound to help put you in a mood to GTD (get things done) as you WFH (work from home).
Happy Thursday!
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First up, the new iphone 14 plus in yellow. Love it! Apple is wise to assign unique colours to new hardware. It’s a smart way to attract people to a new product, and all those new selfies with the new yellow phone is likely to drive up more sales. (I have been known to fall for this sales approach. :))
Also new is Apple Music Classical. I confess, I didn’t understand why Apple was splitting off Classical music this way. After I read more about it, it makes sense. I hope it will lead to people listening to more classical music.
Good work, Apple!
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Posted in IT
Tagged apple, classicalmusic, iphone, IT, music, smartphone
I’ve been a fan of David Byrne and Talking Heads for many a years and have written about them often. (See those links.) And I am writing about them again, because according to Pitchfork, the “1984 concert film, Stop Making Sense, is going to get restored in 4K and re-released theatrically by A24”. Not only that, but “a deluxe edition of the Stop Making Sense soundtrack will come out on vinyl and digitally on August 18.” This got me very excited!
When I was younger, I would love to wander up to the Bloor Cinema in Toronto and watch Stop Making Sense. As a rep movie theatre, it would often play it on the weekend. Even when the Bloor was renovated and turned into the HotDocs theatre, it still plays the film from time to time. And I still love to go see it. I’ve lost track of how many dozens of times I’ve enjoyed it. And now you and I can soon enjoy it in 4K! Woo!
P.S. For people who don’t know of the film, see this: Stop Making Sense .
Here’s the YouTube trailer for the re release…it’s great:
I love that the music for it is Naive Melody…my favorite song in the film.
Comments Off on Who’s excited about the restored 4K version of Stop Making Sense?! This guy!!
Posted in cool
Tagged 1980s, 80s, a24, cool, DavidByrne, music, talkingheads
Everything old is new again. That’s what I thought when I saw that Bay Bloor Radio in Toronto is still selling Sony Walkmans. It’s true. (You can see more of Sony’s line, here .)
Speaking of old to new, I see that the great tumblr known as Tuneage is still going strong. It is getting close to 20 years old, and despite that, it still is recommending great music to listen to. I recommend you check it out.
Also old to new is this: The Smithsonian Will Restore Hundreds of the World’s Oldest Sound Recording. Kudos to the Smithsonian for doing that.
Sadly some thing are going from old to passed on instead of from old to new. Namely old rock legends like David Crosby and Tom Verlaine. That’s a depressing thing to think ona. What’s even more depressing is this piece that shows how many more rock legends are in their late 70s and early 80s and will likely die soon.
Love the music you want, in the format you can get it in, as often as you can, be it new or old.
I have a confession: I have always hated the music from the 70s. If the music of the 60s was revolutionary and the music of the 80s was new wave and punk, the sounds of the 70s were dominated by excessive overproduced smoothness. What started musically in the 60s metastasized in the 70s until the spike of punk put an end to it. I was glad for that.
Lately, I have had a change of heart (ear?) and started to revisit and soften my stand towards that old 70s music. Maybe it was the Bee Gees documentary I recently watched that got me thinking. Or the notion that many of the bands I loved in the 80s got their start in the 70s, or that for every bad disco song there were songs from Bowie and Springsteen. Perhaps it was listening to just the good yacht rock artists like Hall and Oates, Robert Palmer, George Benson, and more. Whatever the cause, the more I listened to it, the more I thought I had thrown the baby out with the bath water, music-wise.
It also helped that I, along with many other people, have been bopping along to Harry Styles and his music. There’s elements to his songs that reminds me of the best of the 70s. You could easily slide his songs into a Yacht Rock playlist and hardly notice the jump in time that occurs between those hits and his.
in fact you could take Harry S (seen below) and place him alongside Robin Zander of Cheap Trick or any of the androgynous rockers of the 70s and he would fit right in:
Now I don’t think Styles is going to lead to a great revisiting of the music of that era, other than for people like me. But who knows? Maybe the music as it was from back then will return for a spell. That would be golden.
For more on Yacht Rock, click here. Spotify users can click on the playlist above. Image of Styles from The New York Times.
Last week I wrote about the Lisa and the rise of the Macintosh. While I was doing that, I came across this list of iPod models, which included these fun facts:
iPods …were once the largest generator of revenue for Apple Computer. After the introduction of the iPhone, the iOS-based iPod touch was the last remaining model of the product line until it was discontinued on May 10, 2022.
It’s remarkable that something that was once the leading generator of revenue is now dead. Blame the iPhone. More accurately, blame streaming. Whatever the real reason, a once great set of products are now gone.
I loved all the iPods I had, from the smallest Shuffle to an iPod Touch that was all but an iPhone. Of all the technologies that I’ve owned, they were among my favorites. Thanks for the songs and the memories, iPod.
(Image of 1st gen iPod Shuffle in its packaging. Via Wikipedia.)
Wait, what is sophisti-pop, you ask? Let me let Wikipedia explain:
Sophisti-pop is a subgenre of pop music which developed out of the new wave movement in the UK during the mid 1980s. The term has been applied retrospectively to describe acts who blended elements of jazz, soul, and pop with lavish production. Music so classified often made extensive use of electronic keyboards, synthesizers and polished arrangements. Artists also utilized cutting-edge studio technology and perfectionist recording methods.The genre has been described as mellow, romantic, and atmospheric.
Sounds right. Sophisti-pop was made by artists like ABC, Aztec Camera, Bryan Ferry, Haircut One Hundred, Joe Jackson, Prefab Sprout, Simply Red and Spandau Ballet. Add to that list three of my favorite: The Style Council, Sade and Everything but the Girl (EBTG).
EBTG captured the genre recently when they wrote: “We were a band who listened to Chet Baker but also Buzzcocks, who loved Getz-Gilberto but also The Doors, whose lyrics were intimate but also political”. The same could be said for many of the bands listed above.
If you want to know what was some of the best of it, check out the 10 of the Best Sophisti-Pop albums. If you’re a Spotify user, they have an entire section devoted to that sound. Also EBTG put together their Complete Discography 1982-2005 on Spotify. They have a new album coming out soon: meanwhile go back in time and listen to what you may have missed.
Finally, here’s a song I’ve listened to a million billion times since it came out. A great song for walking alone at night in the rain:
When I was younger, I loved listening to Christmas music all through the holiday season. This was hard in the days of radio only music, since they often stopping playing Christmas tunes once Christmas day was done. To keep it going, I could play my own records/tapes/CDs, but they get old after a time. (Except for the music for Charlie Brown’s Christmas: that never gets old.)
All that is to say that Spotify solves the problems I used to have. They have LOTS of Christmas music, and you can listen to it all you want. You can even listen to it in July. (That’s too long for me, but you do you.) Not only do they have lots of songs, but they have plenty of playlists. You can even make your own playlist. That way you can list to the type of Christmas you want, when you want it.
Happy holidays to you. Keep it festive with Christmas music, be it from the radio, your own collection, or Spotify. Joyeux Noel.
The 80s come back in vogue from time to time, such as when current works like Stranger Things delve into it. Mostly the decade is seen historically. That’s fine. It was a good decade, at least for me, and I love to think and write on it. One of the great things about having your own blog is you can write what you want about whatever you want. 🙂 So here’s more things on that era that I found worth reading lately…
Much of the music of the early 80s started at the end of the 70s. Take the music of bands like Talking Heads. Or the Ramones. Speaking of them, here’s some great bootleg footage of the Ramones in concert before the person filming it got caught!
As for other artists of that time, here’s a good piece on Blondie. Like punk and new wave, another trend of the time was Blitz. This piece covers the Blitz era and all the music that was associated with it. Moving from the English music scene to Canada, here’s something on Rebecca Jenkins, an artist and musician who was involved with so many other performers I loved at the time, from Jane Siberry, to Holly Cole, to the incomparable Mary Margaret O’Hara.
Another incomparable artist from the time is Richard Grant. I will never forget him for his great turn in the film “Withnail and I” back in the 80s. Nowadays he has suffered a great loss but still keeps going and is inspirational on twitter and elsewhere. This is a good piece to catch up on him: Richard E Grant on grief fame and life without a filter.
Finally, gone but not forgotten, here’s a fine piece on Ruth Polsky Who Shaped New York’s Music Scene in that era. Recommended.
(Image from the piece on Blitz)
So someone named Chris wrote to Nick Cave and asked, “I’m 62 years old and decided to learn how to play guitar. Rock guitar. Is such an endeavour a fool’s errand for someone of my age?” To which he replied “Yes… AND…”. I think anyone considering starting something new should read it. (It can be found here: Nick Cave – The Red Hand Files – Issue #210 – I’m 62 years old and decided.) It reminds you that you can suck and you may be too old (or too short, tall, thin, fat, shy, awkward, etc.) but that good things can come out of it if you keep at it.
Reading it, I was reminded of the classic three chord recommendation: learn three chords and form a band! Why not? If this got you thinking hey maybe I should learn to play the guitar, then you might find this useful: Guitar card cheat sheet. Start with E. 🙂
BTW, I think the advice “learn the basics” and then get out there and make something is good for any creative endeavour, be it drawing or making a web page. Don’t try to learn a lot at first. Learn enough to get started and go from there.
P.S. I think “Yes….AND…” is a great way to answer things. It acknowledges the concerns someone might have while opening them up to possibilities they might not have considered or appreciated.
(More on three chords and form a band, here (and where I got the image from))
The smart folks at Teenage Engineering have produced another cool product. As Yanko Design explains….
The PO-80 Record Factory Kit is a record cutter that engraves audio onto 5″ vinyl discs, giving kids the ability to record their own LPs the old-fashioned way, quite like how millennials made mixtapes and burned their own CDs. The Record Factory, created in collaboration with Yuri Suzuki, lets you engrave and playback 5″ discs with an ultra-analog lo-fi sound. This isn’t studio-grade equipment, after all, but it does add a creamy muffled, effect to your audio that totally sounds like the 40s and 50s in a nutshell.
Love it! For more on the PO-80, see these write ups in Yanko Design and the Awesomer.com.
(Image link to Yanko Design)
Did you know you can still get DVDs from Netflix? Well according to this, you still can! And maybe you should.
I’ve been thinking about it recently for a number of reasons. One is the number of streaming services I pay for that I barely use. Sure I like the idea of being able to watch any movie at the drop of a hat. But do I….really? No, I do not. It’s a waste of money for the idea of instant gratification.
Second, streaming services may be making us less likely to hear and experience new things. I thought of that reading this piece in the Guardian. I find that happens to me with Spotify: it is trying so hard to match me with music that aligns with my taste that I get stuck in a rut. In some ways streaming is a gilded cage.
That’s why we should heed what Clive Thompson says and rewild our imagination. It’s more work, but more rewarding.
So get out your DVD player and order some movies or DVDs and watch something you’ve always wanted to but never seem to because it is not available online. You can even order a DVD player for cheap, here.
Yep, just like some of the later Beatles records, Revolver is getting remixed and maximized, with 64 tracks of goodness for you to purchase or stream. You can read about this new special edition of that great recording here: ANNOUNCING REVOLVER SPECIAL EDITIONS (news), The Beatles.
I’m a huge fan of Revolver: it may be second only to Abbey Road for me if I were to list my favourite Beatle records. It’s all killer, no filler. Get it into your life! 🙂
It’s Labour Day. Take a well earned break from your work. Perhaps you plan to relax and take it easy. That’s a good choice. If you are itching to be more active, though, why not do something creative?
If you are looking to make something, the Washington Post has a section on beginner diy projects.
Perhaps you always wanted to learn to paint? If so, Domestika has this creative watercolor sketching for beginner course.
If you have already started painting and you want to improve your skills, these
YouTube videos by Ian Roberts on Mastering Compostion are good. Likewise, if you can go to the artistsnetwork.com and get guides like this: how to thin acrylic paint and more.
Another source of education is My Modern Met Tutorials.
If you fantasize about going to art school but can’t imagine how you could pay for it, read this: Don’t Want to Pay for Art School? Here’s a Streamlined Syllabus for Getting your MFA.
If you want to do something musical instead, check out patatap, a fun way to make noises and visuals with your keyboard.
Finally, if writing is your thing, you can start a blog here at WordPress. If you want more people to read you though, consider writing for a larger audience and see if they will still take first person articles at The Globe and Mail.
There’s lots of ways to be creative. Have fun!
In the late 80s, Lorne Michaels (of SNL fame) produced this show called “Night Music” that was seen in Canada as well as elsewhere. For a show that only ran from 1988-1990, it featured a wealth of musicians. (You can see the list here.)
One of my favorite episodes was #208 which featured Sting and Mary Margaret O’Hara as well as many other fine musicians. If you have 40 minutes, you can see it here:
What I like about that episode, like most episodes, is that you get a wide range of musicians, old and new, all doing challenging or interesting music. You didn’t just see the latest artists performing their hits. You didn’t just see one style of music. You never knew what to expect, other than it would be good.
So check out that video while you can. I’ve posted Night Music videos before and they get pulled sooner or later. See it while you can, and see why it was so good.
I find it fascinating when ideas reoccur in music videos. Take these two. First up is “Heaven” by the Psychedelic Furs.
Next up, “Girl Like You” by Maroon 5, some years – decades – later.
Both use a similar style, where the camera seems to revolve around the singer, allowing for lots of motion even while the singer remains in one place. It’s effective in giving the video life. It’s also interesting to see it revisited after all this time in the latter video.
Of course, there are other things that give the video action. In “Heaven”, there is literally a downpour of water! While in “Girl Like You’, there is the effect of many women appearing behind Levine as he sings.
Anyway, both effective videos. I am loathe to post music videos these days: so many times the music companies will yank the videos and leave my blog posts looking poorly. Perhaps these ones, because they have been there for some time, won’t be removed.
P.S. It’s an impressive pantheon of women appearing in the Maroon 5 video, ranging from performers to athletes to activists. You can get the details on who they are, here.
P.S.S. Here’s a different version of “Girl Like You” which I like even more.
Comments Off on Friday Night Music with the Psychedelic Furs and….Maroon 5?
Posted in music
Tagged Friday, fridaynightmusic, music, musicvideo
Paul is 80 this year, and a good year he’s been having. People are writing pieces filled with praise. He had a big show at Glastonbury with his buds. Not bad for an octogenarian.
It’s been a long and winding road from the early days of the Beatles to now. Some argue that serendipity had a big part to play in Paul and the Beatles’ Success. I’ll let you read that and be the judge. I think it had a small part.
Finally, think of your favorite McCartney song. Then dive into this and see what others famous and less famous picked as theirs: People’s favorite McCartney song. I was surprised by the frequency of Martha My Dear and Temporary Secretary. I was also surprised that Band on the Run was only picked by one person. Read it and be surprised in your own way.
Pop stars have unique careers. For some of them, it can be like being an athlete: you do it while you are young and then you are done. That what came across to me in this piece: ‘That’s it? It’s over? I was 30. What a brutal business’: pop stars on life after the spotlight moves on | Music | The Guardian.
Then there are some artists — not as many — who go on and on and whose careers shift and they become more akin to academics (e.g, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen).
What happens after the spotlight shifts depends on the artist. Read the article and see.
It’s an interesting career, to say the least. All the power in the world to those that can make a go of it.
Comments Off on The elusive spotlight (being a pop star as a career)
Posted in ideas
Tagged culture, ideas, music, theguardian
The Smith’s were (are?) great for many reasons. One reason in particular was their album covers. Looks like the folks at NME agree, because they put together
an exhaustive guide to each and everyone of their 27 single and album releases’ sleeves, and what they mean
You can find here. Fans of the band will enjoy that. I did.
Speaking of the Smiths, this piece by Doug Coupland, Morrissey will never be cancelled is worth a read.
How to: If you want to make cartoons & comics but you have no idea where to start!, read that. If you want to draw a head, read How to draw a head: A complete guide. If you want some good books on art, there is this, 16 Best Books for Learning to Paint of 2022 and this Top 10 Best Books on Painting. Click these links if you want to draw fabric or draw glass. If you want to go to OCAD and study art, click on this or this.
Artists: if you want to read about artists, here some pieces on Jeff Koons, Marcel Duchamp, Keith Haring, James Castle‚ Richard Serra and Jeff Koons again.
Thinking: if you like to think about art, then you might want to read, is my art good enough, What Does It Really Mean to Make Art?, When art transports us where do we actually go? and 24 Hours in the Creative Life.
Music: if you prefer music over the visual arts, here’s some good stuff: Guitarist Randy Bachman Demystifies the Magical Opening Chord of The Beatles‚ Hard Day’s Night. Speaking of the Beatles, here’s a piece on Skiffle. And if that inspires you: How to Play Guitar Without Learning How to Play Guitar.
Writing: if your thing is writing, here’s a piece on Essay writing. This was fun: a defense of the em-dash. This may discourage you: No one will read your book. This may encourage you: Dagny Carlsson Centenarian Blogger Dies at 109.
P.S. The good rules you see above are from that link to Swiss Miss.
How cool is that? A synthesizer that steals design elements from Nintendo. Brilliant! More on it, here: Love Hulten NES-SY37 Synthesizer | Uncrate.
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Tagged cool, design, instruments, music, synthesizer, uncrate
Then consider going to this blog. Here’s the piece there discussing: What is a Prelude? After you read that, scroll to the very bottom of the post, where you will see they also have introductions to minuets, cantatas, operettas and more.
Saturday afternoons are a good time to learn such things. Then find some music to listen to.
Comments Off on What is a prelude? (and more ways to learn about classical music…)
Posted in music
Tagged classicalmusic, music, tutorials
If you are thinking of moving from Spotify but you don’t want to because you have all these great playlists, then you might want to consider the site TuneMyMusic.com . It’s a service to help you do just that. I haven’t tried it yet but it could be just the thing if you are thinking of going from Spotify to Apple Music or Tidal or one of the other music streaming services.
Thanks to Navneet Alang for point it out.
For someone in your life that likes to make music, this could be just the gift for them. As the website explains:
Orba is a handheld synth, looper, and MIDI controller that lets anyone make music immediately. With Orba’s integrated looper you can layer Drum, Bass, Chord, and Lead parts to create beats and songs on the fly. Play through the built-in speaker or use the ⅛” jack to connect headphones or amplifiers. Pair wirelessly to the Orba app to customize your instrument and share your creations with friends.
I thought it was cool, especially for people who love to be on the go but also love to make music all the time.
Well besides being Canadian artists, they are both featured in this post! 🙂
In addition to those great artists, here are other things I’ve found interesting in art recently.
Artists: Here’s a strong story: Julie Green Artist Who Memorialized Inmate’s Last Suppers Dies at 60 . I was really struck by this piece about her. She did important art and it’s well worth reading about her and her work. More on that here: Dish by Dish Art of Last Meals.
This was an amazing story: Art Enthusiast Spots Long-Lost Sculpture by Black Folk Artist in Missouri Front Yard. I liked this story: The Gilded Age painter devoted to scenes of every-day life around him. Also this one was good: A TikTok Subway Artist Finds His Way to the Lower East Side
This made me sad: Bernini Bust of a Woman He Abused Exhibited Alongside Photographs of Survivors . I have always been a fan of Bernini. That he was brutally cruel to Costanza Buonarelli (the woman who was the victim) is not something I can ever reconcile with how much I love his work.
This is a good little piece on a work by KENT MONKMAN: “DANDY”. And here is a great study of how Christopher Pratt created one of my favorite works: “Pedestrian Tunnel”.
How-to: I’ve been doing some drawing and watercolor these days. I’ve moved on from being a frustrated artists to actually making some basic art. This is a good tool for that: Free Interactive 3D Model for Drawing Figures Dynamic Poses and More Online Drawing Mannequin.
Relatedly, I found these useful. Here’s some good tips so you can get Better at Drawing. This helped: Learn how to draw a face in 8 easy steps: Beginners. So did this: Draw a Self-Portrait. As did this: Human Anatomy Fundamentals: Basic Body Proportions .
I’ve been interested in multimedia, so I was into this: Using Acrylics in Collage, and this: How to Adhere Paper to Canvas, and also this: The Best Paint To Use For A Beautiful Collage Painting.
Music: most of my art interest is visual, but I also like these music links: Guitar Trainer by Acoustro, and The Complete Beginner Saxophone Course,
and this 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Bach.
Finally: this looks like a good book: Your Art Will Save Your Life
(Image is a link to the piece on Pratt.)
If you are a fan of the Style Council, as I am, I highly recommend this: Long Hot Summers: The Story of The Style Council (2020) | SHOWTIME
It’s an excellent review of the career of the musicians that made up the band, and a fine reminder of how great they were.
While there were many people interviewed for it, Tracey Thorn didn’t appear, sadly. I would have loved to hear more about how she crossed paths and became a Councillor for a time.
Watch the documentary: you’ll be glad you did. Meanwhile, check this out:
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