27 posts tagged “music”

Last night, I was at the dinner table with Mitsuki, going over some math problems. There’s a focus on mathematics in the First Grade, we discovered. To support this, we’re been giving her extra math problems after she completes her homework. We make up these one-minute math tests (20 addition or subtraction problems), as well as some word problems (“James saw Star Wars three times. Then, he saw Up twice. Finally, he saw Madagascar 5 times. How many times did he go to the movies?”).

I gave her a visual-pattern question:

Complete the pattern.
 
square triangle square square triangle square triangle triangle square triangle square {blank} triangle square triangle {blank}
 
Hint: Break up the shapes into groups of four

Well, she didn’t get it at first. We looked at the hint together. Then I divided the shapes into groups of four:
 
square triangle square square
triangle square triangle triangle
square triangle square {blank}
triangle square triangle {blank}
 
As I said them aloud, she said, “Wait, I’ve heard this before.” She was remembering the bilateral move in aerobics wherein the exercise – such as a jab or tilt of the head – alternates sides, in the pattern of single single double (or, left right left left, right left right right).
 
Then, it clicked. “Oh!” she said and grabbed for the pencil and filled in the blanks.
 
square triangle square square
triangle square triangle triangle
square triangle square square
triangle square triangle triangle
 
It was quite gratifying to see that a) she could get her arms around this new type of problem, b) she recalled the musical/dance pattern and could related it to the math problem, and c) she (hopefully) walked away with a new technique for finding patterns.
 
Then, the kicker. What I was waiting for. Before she could move onto the next thing, I said, “Wait, I want to show you something” and I wrote R above the squares and L above the triangles. “This is also a drumming pattern,” and I played it for her.
 
RLRR LRLL RLRR LRLL
 
Half surprised, I watched her take it slow and tap it on the dinner table. It was easy for her.
 
“That,” I concluded, “is called a paradiddle.”
 
“A para-diddle?” she repeated and laughed.
 
I’d been waiting years to teach her that, and it took all but 5 minutes for her to get it.

I was listening to KFOG's "New Music Thursday" last night, and at a crucial moment in the evening, Chris Isaak's "We've Got Tomorrow" popped on.

Isaak, who is a local boy and a longtime favorite of mine - long before Helena Christensen and his subsequent over-exposure - has been putting out records consistently since "Wicked Game." But I hadn't heard anything in a long while that stuck with me.

I know he's got more to him than the flaccid, cliché-heavy songs that make it to the radio, so with every new song I hear I pin hopes that he hasn't shot his bolt.

But this one, from his recently dropped "Mr. Lucky" album, sounds promising. There's still a hint of sap in his trademark croon, but we have a bonafide love song with a positive outlook for once. There are more than the usual changes. Some jaunty horns. Some tasty guitar. Things are looking up. Good job, Chris.

// EDIT #2: The website Seeqpod has closed down. So, there goes my playlists, as well as access to many of the songs I picked. :-(  But my Dropbox still works. // Doug, 16-JUL-2009 13:47 PST

// EDIT: I noticed the Dropbox links weren't working well, so I eliminated the spaces in the filenames and updated the links below. Let me know if you have any problems.  // Doug (aka, BossaNova) 26-Mar-2009 10:32am PST

Streaming audio from my Dropbox:

• Mike Viola's "So Much Better" (1:50)
• Pizzicato Five's "Cleopatra 2001" (5:21)
• Joshua Redman's "Chill" (7:41)

Depending on how intelligent your browser is, and yet still comes up short, you might have to right-click those links above, copy the URL and paste it into your Winamp or other media player, etc.

After renting Mr. Children's Q album from the public library, I find myself addicted to a batch of songs (tracks 9-11), including this one.

This is yet another example of me having yawned through several (hundred) appearances of this band on Japan's "Hey Hey Hey" music program only to discover how fantastically melodic and diverse they are, hearing other songs.

There's also an English subtitled video of "Road Movie" (Youtube), for those Nihongo impaired like me. Are these guys' lyrics always so full of detailed and philosophical? That's for me to find out, I guess.

(Silly me for misreading ムービー as "ma-a-bi-i" instead of "mu-u-bi-i." That will make your Googling for translated lyrics that much harder.)

A shimmering monochrome rainbow in a sky full of crows.
A zoo where no one is smiling.

The streetlights show me a future 2 seconds ahead.
The motorcycle races
to a pleasure of passing the darkness laid out in even intervals.
Speed up a little more now.
Racing on to the next future.

I'm pretty sure there's a goal line somewhere along this road.
I bring that vision with me.

Isn't it great when you find a band (or anything, for that matter) that gets you excited and fills you with longing for more? Simply energizing. Revives your belief that there are so many pockets of beauty out there; you just have to keep rummaging. The fun is doing it among the sales items or (as in the case of Japanese music CDs at your local library) the rentables and those available for free.

RIAA to Stop Suing Music Fans, Cut Them Off Instead from Wired.com

By Eliot Van Buskirk | December 19, 2008 | 10:26:17 AM | Categories: Music

In Mt. View, where the old Tower Records used to be, a Rasputin Music store has opened. I'd been wanting to go there for a while, but it wasn't until today at lunchtime that I was able to drag Verbal there with me.  

I used to frequent the Rasputin's in San Jose all too frequently. Too often if you consult my accoutant. This store always has bins and bins of used electronica. Which, depending on your cashflow, makes shopping sort of like an arcade game. You know, the one where you move the mechanical arm to try and pick up the plastic container with the ring inside. Looking at the endless, colorful releases of electronica artists I've never heard of, it's a challenge to buy something that a) is under some self-imposed limit, like, say, $6; and b) you hope is decent, based on cover art and a vague recollection of some DJ's name. My run at this Rasputin's slowed when I discovered Streelight Records down the street; I pretty much shop there exclusively now. (Though music-shopping's a rare event nowadays.)

Then there was today. Before stepping into the Mt View Rasputin's, my hopes were high. I even made a list and for the first time ever alphabetized it, making it oh-so easier on my always overloaded brain.

Ash
Clazziquai Project
Crowded House
Eggstone
Falkner, Jason
Farrah
Fountains of Wayne
Hatherley, Charlotte
Hush Sound, the
Jessica Fletchers, the
Mellowmen, the
Merry Makers, the
Nines, the
Owsley
Rooney
Taylor, Lewis
Winteries, the

But here's the drop: I didn't find any of my indie artists, and the Ash release I wanted - Twilight of the Innocents - was $19. I mean, you walk into a used records store, you certainly don't want to pay anything over $12 for a domestic release. Come on.

So yeah, I was a bit disappointed. The selection wasn't all that. And the atmosphere of the store was akin to a waterlogged warehouse with some organized record bins. If there were the usual rock and movie posters up anywhere, I didn't notice them. Ironically I do recall the bareness and blandness of the walls; I think one's bare ass - perhaps even mine - could warrant more attention. Maybe they haven't fully moved in yet.

Here's what I walked away with for $32. And in typical fashion, I bought off-list.

Crowded House, Time on Earth
Juliana Hatfield, Made in China
INXS, The Swing
Rooney, Rooney

But, ya know, I'll be back.

// Off-topic and sort of off-color: Did you know that Grigori Rasputin's beard wasn't the only thing long about him?  

SeeqPod.com is a "playable search" site for music and video that Verbal turned me onto. It's like a search site for MP3s and video files - which can be hosted anywhere, it seems, such as private websites and even public storage sites - and you can play the streams right on SeeqPod.

It relies on folks to submit URLs of their content for indexing.

If you are a website owner and haven't bothered to set up a streaming server, or don't know how, or haven't gotten your hosting provider to finagle it for you, this provides an answer.

And for your music-hungry, RIAA-loathing, web-addicted selves, we all share the win by being able to search, (hopefully) find, play the stream, and stroke our ears to instant gratification. You can save your playlists, too.

This isn't Napster or Morpheus circa 2001, but it's something close. The catalogue is decent, but not wide (not so good for J-pop, for example), though you will find some rare surprises. And it's adding content all the time.

And the real boner to this is that SeeqPod lists the URL of the source file, so if you're industrious enough (that is, you bother to mouse over and type what you see), you can own it, too.

Here's one review of SeeqPod from Read/Write Web and how it "neatly sidestep copyright and legal concerns."

Also cool is that SeeqPod provides ways to embed its player into your own sites and blogs (a la YouTube).

Here are some winning free-kicks in the power pop vein:

• Princess Six by Ash
• Rescue Plan by Charlotte Hatherley
• I Want You to Know (acoustic) by Charlotte Hatherley
• More Than You Know by Peter Adams
• The Dog by Eggstone
• Hide Your Heart Away by Lewis Taylor

Wait for the file to load, then hit the Play button.

Last night I caught Smashing Pumpkins at the Fillmore with Verbal. They are currently camping out on an extended stay in San Francisco, for something like 9 shows.

They just released Zeitgeist, their first new album in 7 years. They played some cuts from this, along with many songs I didn't know. But, to the crowd's pleasure, Billy Cogan and Jimmy Chamberlain and 3 other new members performed a lot of the good old stuff like "Bullet with Butterfly Wings," "Hummer," "Cherub Rock," and the ever-stirring "Tonight."

Billy was looking thin and tall, and for most of the evening was in good spirits, showing some sharp humor and local sports knowledge ("When they asked me what color the 'Zero' shirt should be, I said, 'Raider colors'). He was funny and lucid with some trademark dark humor: "How am I? I'm angry and full of bile."

And towards the end of the set, he talked at length, just kind of riffing and rambling, even lightly threatening to end the show right there. "We've given you 22 songs... That's almost a dollar a song." Something must've jarred him - maybe the fact that Jimmy Charmberlain got more cheers for his solo album than Billy's - for he went on about "haters" for a little too long.

The entire show started off with some acoustic numbers, with a slightly country feel. All of these opening songs I was unfamiliar with. (I stopped my fanatical following of them after Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.) And it wasn't until he strapped on his electric that the energy needle jumped and Jimmy started bashing with full force.

Although there were some long songs (newer ones) with extended, feedbackin' guitar solos - straying into that prog rock arena - they all made sense in and of themselves.

The three new members - Jeff on guitar, a girl on bass and another girl on keyboards - showed some good stuff, and the numbers were very tight.

Jimmy, who is a God among drummer, has a tendency to rush his fills, but we all forgive him because he is such a technical and lyrical badass, showing controlled power and dynamic delicacies. Even the casual listen can pick up on his undeniable rockin'-ness.

Billy, in one of his spiels, mention that Jimmy is a new father. When a stage light flashed Jimmy in the face, Billy riffed, "That's the light of fatherhood, Jimmy." It's encouraging to see Jimmy turn it around, going from substance abuse to family man in 10 years.

I've seen the Pumkpins 3 times prior, and they still had their edge. But there was noticable improvement in Billy's voice. He must've worked on this during his stint with Zwan and some solo efforts for it was strong enough to pull off a keyboard-vocal-only number ("Death from above" was a lyrical refrain.)

Big thanks to Verbal for hooking me up with the tickets, and driving to SF Japantown. Gotta dig the Fillmore.

Crowded House have reformed and are set to release a new album titled "Time on Earth." They just released its tracklisting on their website. And to make fantastic news even more exhilarating is that Johnny Marr co-wrote and plays on two tracks!

Check out the video [QuickTime, high] on finding their new drummer Matt. He's a California native, and sounds like an energetic talent. In the video, there are live song snippets from their rehearsals.

Here's my post on it (including the tracklisting).

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, I thought we could turn our gaze round towards, well not Ireland, but the UK and our watches back to 1986 when our favorite socialist songwriter Billy Bragg [allmusic.com] released the single “Greetings to the New Brunette.” This is the lead song of the excellently titled album “Talking With the Taxman About Poetry.” If you look at who appears on “Greetings,” the level of magnitude on the Britpop scale is no less that than when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met in Yalta.

Firstly, we have the fiercely driven Bragg, whose DIY approach, with electric guitar and sleeping bag in hang, took him into workman’s circles, concert halls and the Billboard charts. Not just a folkie politico, he proved in his records that he has great depth and a wide reach; like the football he so dearly loves, he can play many positions. His ballads can be tender and romantic, his rockers articulate and funny. All the while, the melodies are hummable and his storytelling rich and detailed. This single was the first I’d heard of him and was years ahead of his fantastic and popular album “Don’t Try This at Home” – a personal favorite.

Though, I admit, I'm not fully grasping what's in this song, it’s got an immediacy that puts you within eavesdropping-length of the song’s narrator and his beloved.

Politics and pregnancy are divided as we empty our glasses
How I loved those evening classes

Secondly, we have none other than Johnny Marr, who at this time was at the controls of a cultural phenomenon known as the Smiths. In late 1986, just after the release of “The Queen is Dead,” he was quite busy being the musical half of the Morrissey-Marr songwriting machine, and to my knowledge, “Greetings” is the first time he snuck out of the madhouse and suddenly appeared on someone else’s records. (Not too soon afterwards, he took the role of journeyman to its extreme, guesting on so many other artists’ albums after the Smiths broke up.) Also of note here, Marr – who took great pains not to take any solos – went against his own grain and lays a tasty and purposely un-flashy solo just before the bridge. And all throughout, there’s that shiny, brimming acoustic Johnny sound.

Thirdly, we have the goddess of Kirsty MacColl [allmusic.com]. An awesomely talented singer and songwriter herself, she at the time was – again to my limited knowledge – many years into her musical career, with some chart successes as solo artist (to date, “They Don’t Know” and a cover of Bragg’s “A New England”) and as a session musician (she is the wonderfully refreshing and siren-like backup voice on the Smiths’ “Ask.”) And on “Greetings,” she is no less refreshing, adding that angelic touch on the high end.

If you haven’t heard her records and you love Britpop, you must must must go and get one of her albums. “Kite” is another personal favorite and the melodies, arrangements, complexities and lyrics are staggering. Why she didn’t become a bigger name in music in the US is a great swipe of unfairness. Friends with many famous musicians, she has lots of interesting guests on her records. A frequent collaborator is Marr himself, but that’s not to take anything away from MacColl. She had so much natural talent, creativity and wit, she couldn’t even be contained in one language – she even sang in French and Spanish.

The deep tragedy is that she died in a freak and controversial boating accident in 2000 while vacationing with her children in Mexico. When I heard this, I was depressed for days, just like I was upon hearing that Jaco Pastorius had died.

So, in honor of this Big Three, let’s give a listen and raise a pint to all the Brunettes and non-Brunettes of the world and enjoy the resulting intoxication.

// I only have electric version of the song in MP3. What’s lost is Kirsty, to my chagrin. And Marr's guitar solo is replaced by a harmonica.