If It be Your Will – a radio documentary featuring Leonard Cohen
www.abc.net.au/rn/intothemusic/stories/2008/2141681.htm
"Canadian writer and musician Leonard Cohen insists he hardly remembers anything from his past, and that he lives mostly in the present. But over the course of this intimate radio feature by Norwegian producer Kari Hesthamar, Cohen looks back over his life and shares some thoughts about earlier days..."
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Leonard Cohen Special
Added Comments/RSS Feeds/Links
Doh! I just discovered that I hadn't turned on the comments option. Sorry about that! Not that comments are all that important, as this isn't a site intended to generate discussion like the political blogs (at least not yet).
I have added several music-related RSS Feeds to the very bottom of the page, as well as the local weather stuff. More RSS feeds will be added as time goes on.
I had already started the RSS Feed Section yesterday, with a feed from the Mt. Washington Observatory Photo Gallery. As you will see, there is some serious-quality and very imaginative shutterbugging going on up there! These are always being added to, and you can also jump to photo galleries from previous months (and previous years).
I am also adding to the list of links, which are mainly (but not all) music-related. Keep checking back to see what's new. I have put a few zany music bloggers up, like "Probe" and also Lee Harstfield's blog (a tune of his was on this year's "Christmas in Seufland")
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Stupid Music Picture of The Day
Yet another nice closeup I took in 2000 in Lowell MA, this one of Texas Playboys steel guitar man Herbie Remington. Herb auditioned for Bob Wills in 1946 and stayed with the Texas Playboys for 4 years. Later, after stints with other country folks, he formed a band with his wife Mel called "The Beachcombers", playing Hawaiian tunes. In 1986, he started selling his own line of steel guitars, one of which he is playing here.
Herbie's company is called "Remington Steel Guitars". I wonder if it was the inspiration for the old TV series "Remington Steele" ?
Visit Herbie and say Boy Howdy here:
Copy a CD, Owe $1.5 Million?
"Not content with the current (and already massive) statutory damages allowed under copyright law, the RIAA is pushing to expand the provision. The issue is compilations, which now are treated as a single work. In the RIAA's perfect world, each copied track would count as a separate act of infringement, meaning that a copying a ten-song CD even one time could end up costing a defendant $1.5 million if done willfully. Sound fair? Proportional? Necessary? Not really, but that doesn't mean it won't become law"
More gruesome details here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080129-statutory-damages-not-high-enough.html
Led Zeppelin to launch world tour?
Jimmy Page is ready, but Robert Plant is on tour with Alison Krauss 'til September.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22879713/
Israel to Beatles: "We're Sorry"
Israel is to apologize to Paul and Ringo (as well as Olivia and Yoko) for cancelling the Fab 4's Israel concert in 1965.
I guess at the time they were preoccupied with imminent annihilation by the countries surrounding them...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AGVNCHVPMJSZXQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2008/01/28/wbeatles128.xml
Happy National Kazoo Week
From Kaz "Captain Kazoo" Cap, 4 videos celebrating National Kazoo Daze.
http://www.captainkazoo.com/
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Stupid Music Picture of the Day
Speaking of Texas Playboys, here are a few of them onstage at the Lowell (MA) Folk Festival in 2000. At far left is the late great Gene Gassaway, who fiddled his last notes a couple of years ago. The band at this point was led by legendary steel guitar man Herbie Remington, with Tommy Duncan's successor Leon Rausch handling the vocals.
Some New Releases and Reissues
For many years I have been a customer of Collectors' Choice Music, which started out as a seller of re-issues but has since evolved into one of the major players in licensing stuff to release under their own label. Some of their own reissue efforts have been forgettable (such as their ill-fated reissue of the simply horrible Don Ho Christmas album), but their latest catalog has a ton of great stuff.
Some examples:
In the CC "exclusive" category, they have the 3 1980s albums Mel Tillis did for Elektra, the first two 1961 albums by comedian/social activist Dick Gregory, a twofer from the 1960s by rockabilly legend Ronnie Hawkins (with "The Hawks", later to become The Band, backing him up), and one I had never heard of, Ginger Baker and the DJQ2O, a jazz album by the drummer for "The Cream".
CCM also is running a music DVD blow-out, with a lot of stuff on sale, and they also feature some other interesting new releases, including two CDs of commercials from the 1950s and 1960s done by rock and roll performers, a new import with the Capitol albums done by some former Byrds named McGuinn, Clark and Hillman, and even the new Bear Family reissue of Merle Haggard's Capitol Records recordings from 1968 thru 1976. The latter includes his epic 1970 Bob Wills tribute album, which reunited many of the original Texas Playboys.
Be sure you have a lot of money! Their website (which I have always had trouble with, but I assume that's because I am on a dialup ISP) is...
http://www.ccmusic.com/
Graceland Revisited 2008
Paul Simon has announced some special shows in Brooklyn, where he'll be joined by the always-entertaining Hugh Masekela. Former TH David Byrne will also show up...
http://www.nme.com/news/paul-simon/33958
Monday, January 28, 2008
Yesterday in 1938...
New York Times archives January 27, 1938
1,500 STORM THEATRE TO RECEIVE GOODMAN
Police Called to Handle Crowd Beginning to Form at 5 A. M.
--- Mae West Film Shown
Long before the scheduled opening hour at 8 A. M. yesterday crowds filled the lobby of the Paramount Theatre, overflowed onto Broadway and down the Forty-third Street side of the theatre to hail the return of Benny Goodman and his swing orchestra and to welcome the new Mae West comedy “Every Day’s a Holiday.” Lines started forming at 5 o’clock and the management reported that 1,500 persons were on hand at 7:30, a half hour earlier than had been planned.
Shortly after 8 o’clock the management put in a call to the West Forty-seventh Street police station and ten patrolmen were detailed to assist the ushers in handling the crowd. At 10:30, when the box office was forced to close, the line extended down Forty-third Street to Eighth Avenue. The first show started at 8:15 A. M., which is said to be an all-time early opening record for a first-run Broadway theatre, and all seats and available standing room inside the 3,664-seat house had been sold by 9 o’clock. Police reported that they had to extinguish two bonfires started by shivering customers, who had arrived at 5 o’clock.
When the Goodman band appeared on the stage the audience, composed in the main of high school students, roared a hearty greeting and couples danced in the aisles. The more venturesome swarmed up on the stage and gave impromptu exhibitions of the shag and other swing tempo dances. As a precautionary measure the doors of the Paramount will open this morning and tomorrow morning at 7:30.
Welcome to the Hill!
"Turn Down That Stupid Music!"
Those words were uttered by my my Dad one memorable night in the mid 1970's, when I tempted fate by playing "Fat Boy Rag" by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (with its killer guitar solos by Junior Barnard) a little too loudly after consuming too many adult beverages.
This blog will be dedicated to the passing along of obscure (and sometimes, STUPID!) nuggets of musical trivia. Unlike some other musical blogs (some of which I will link to as the blog develops) I will not actually post any music here, but if I see some noteworthy downloadable tunes I will mention them. Maybe when the phone company gets DSL up here on The Hill I will eventually do this, but don't hold your breath!
Be forewarned: "Stupid Music" includes many types of melodies-you'll find info here on South African jazz, Zydeco, Sidney Bechet, and even Hawaiian music.
And of course, Bob Wills is still The KING! Enjoy your visit...
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