beancounters

Partying with America's Band

Happy America's Birthday, blogfolk! Other than the fact the "fiscally conservative" Republicans are currently running up our national debt so high, our grandchildren will be taxed into oblivion to pay it off, and we're deep in two wars of questionable legitimacy, and our good name is mud in the international community thanks to the personal efforts of our president ... um, where was I?

Oh yes. Put all that aside for today, because it's Independence Day!*

Last night we ventured to the park with Neighbors Bill, Karen and Bob, to see Kansas in concert. Yes!Kansas! You didn't even know Kansas was still together, did you? Try 32 years, my friend. OK, I had no idea, either. But it was a killer show. They were great.

BB calls them America's Band, and he doesn't care what Grand Funk Railroad has to say about it.

* Sometimes I think my mother is right, and it was a pretty bad move to have broken away from England in the first place. Whenever we watch the movie 1776, she shouts at John Adams, "No! You fool! Don't do it!" But what's done is done; I doubt if Great Britain would even have us back now. Onward! Party hearty!

Air guitarists live out rock dreams

NEW YORK - Air guitar is growing in popularity (the U.S. competition has steadily grown in size since 2002) and is coming closer to a viable occupation for some.

The rules for air-guitar competition are simple:

• The guitar (which can be acoustic or electric) must be "invisible."

• "Air bands" are not allowed.

• "Air roadies" are OK.

• You can use a real pick.

The rest is an exercise of imagination — and for many, it's serious business ...

Not everyone is a believer. After a TV segment on air guitarists several years ago, CNN anchor Jack Cafferty declared: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen."

Well, I don't know. It's no dumber than karaoke - and at least you don't have to listen to them try and actually play like Jimmy Page.

Not sure I'd pay to attend a competition, however. Unless one of you were to compete ...? Hey, I'd join in as your air roadie!

Pure Evil

With bated breath, everybody playing Patriside's Evil Music Mix exchange has been waiting for this day. Last month, each of us made a bootleg CD of our favorite, most evilest music we could find. But we did not include a playlist; it was up to the recipient to take a stab at what was on there.

According to the rules, today (the day of ultimate evil, 6/6/06) we post the playlist. And then troll around the blogs on the above link, looking for what must be the playlist we got in exchange.

The mix I received was really good. It leans quite a bit toward the country-crossover genre, which is foreign to me. But dang, those crossing-over country folks sure do know their evil. Some great stuff on there. I don't know any of their names so it's going to be challenging finding my benefactor. I think I recognize Bob Segar on track one, and there's that Johnny Cash / Nine Inch Nails song. Two good leads there.

So without further ado, Beancounter's Evil Music Mix:

Channelling Lennon

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A controversial television seance airing on Monday will claim it has reached the spirit of John Lennon, but viewers will have to pay $9.95 to find out what the peace-loving Beatle has to say.

You probably didn't know this, but I am occasionally psychic. And right now, I feel an otherworldly presence in the room ... A spirit manifestation from beyond ... it's Lennon! Ohmygosh! He wants to send a message!

He says, 'Yoko, get a real job, and quit selling off me knickers for rent money.'

Uncanny!

Check it out - he even let me take a free picture of his ectoplasm:

Update: Unfortunately, Yoko's already found my blog post, and wants you to know you are forbidden to download the ectoplasm JPG unless you send her $45 USD first. She's gonna give me her PayPal link here in a moment. 

Time for Frankenstein to dance?

See, on one hand, change is bad.

On the other hand, apparantly "The Producers" is really good.

On the other other hand, who can resistthese lyrics?

"He vus my boyfriend; He vould come home in a snit; He vould have a terrible fit; I am the first thing he vould hit but I didn't give a shit; He vus my boyfriend."

I can see again! This calls for a song!

This is just bizarre - one guy's mission to rewrite tragic operas, and make the endings happier.

What might that be like? Will Violetta the prostitute be cured of consumption in the last act by Germont's long-lost sister, the virologist? Will Don Giovanni repent at the last moment and escape being drawn into Hell? Maybe he'll accept Jesus as his Personal Savior and be redeemed. The possibilities are endless - and oh so tacky.

Hooked on a Hasselhoff

Oh my.

I hope I can explain why this video fills me with peace, and gives me a sense of hope and security, like nothing else has.

See, if DH can make it big as a singer in Germany, why then, we all have a shot at career redemption!

[via Lisa V]

Wha ...? Wha ...?

Captain Kirk lets his hair down to the tune of Joe Jackson? Where the hell have I been? Why didn't you tell me?

Go! Just go! Get up, get out of here right now, and don't come back until you've stolen a car and driven to the record store and bought me the CD that has this song on it!

And gift-wrap it! I want gift wrap!

Band-spotting

Can you name all 75 bands referred to in this picture? I figured out about 18 of them; surely you can do better. Give it a try. [Answer key here.]

Copyright / Kopyright

The Big Picture: DRM Crippled CD: A bizarre tale in 4 parts.

I keep up with the DRM / copyright protections issue mainly through my husband the audiophile. The blog post above is worthy of a few minutes of your time, as it basically explains how an inter-corporation feud is keeping you from full use of the music you buy on CD.

Rock's Oldest Joke?

Yelling 'Freebird!' in a crowded theatre. Read essays & effluvia's old-but-good roundup of a WSJ article (mainly because we're too cheap to have a subscription to WSJ ourselves).

The thing is, before this, I had no idea that yelling "Freebird!", and mimicing holding up a lighter, at inappropriate times and places like other artists' concerts, or church* - that all these things constituted a popular joke. One that a lot of people do. I thought it was just something BB and I did to make people around us roll their eyes.

Go figure! We clearly need to get out more.

* Yeah. But don't forget, it's a UU church.

High cultcha

Everybody's favorite figure-skating scandal is getting new life - as a one-act opera. [via Anthony]

In a world where Jerry Springer can be immoralized in what sounds like a very funny full-length opera, this was only a matter of time.

Not all "classical" opera used to be high-brow, you know. Mozart wrote some stuff. Oh, yeah. People put him down for catering to the Springer fans of his day. But one era's vaudeville is another's high culture. Or in the Springer opera's case, at least, ironic vaudeville.

In either case: can this man's "bio-op" be far behind?

Top songs of 1981: the meme

I did what I was told, and kept the meme alive. Actually, after visiting this site and looking up the Top 100 hits of 1981 (the year I graduated high school), I was anxious to go through the list and mark those I loved in bold, those I loathed and despised with a satisfying cross-through. It was a form of closure for me. (George? I know your 1981 picks will be quite different.)

Literary punk

It's Saturday*, so you have time to listen to the songs of Harry and the Potters. Maya sent us a timely link, which said they were playing at a branch of the local library at 2:00 today.

They're these two guys, who are both Harry Potter, and who sing punk songs they wrote themselves about their life at Hogwarts. They were very funky and funny. The crowd liked them a whole lot - many already knew the songs. My favorite was The Human Hosepipe, but Save Ginny Weasley brought down the house and made the books jump off the shelves. I bought a CD and had this 8 year-old girl go up after the show and get it autographed. I'm telling you, if they ever come to a library near you, go and see them.

* Well, there's 1 1/2 hours left in Saturday. But tomorrow's Sunday, and I know you definitely have time on Sunday.

Lyrical quizzing

Have you ever taken one of the Am I Right pop lyrics quizzes? Dude. On quiz #37 I only got 9 out of 20 right. I mean, I knew I was out of touch, but not that badly. How did you do?

Sometimes you're the knot, sometimes you're the ax

Whups, I went back on my earlier decision. Kid A was back in the CD player this morning. Sue me.

Bunny got done reading the comics page in silence on the way to school, and hit play. After about thirty seconds, she wrinkled her nose. "Gee, this is exciting."

"It's different," I said as I tried to defend my backsliding ways. "Most music tells a story. This music tries to tell ... a mood. A complicated mood."

"Oh. Uh-huh? Hmmph." [Translation: Say, lady, maybe you should have that checked!]

Basically in my daughter's world, if John Lennon didn't sing about it first, then it isn't worth knowing. And when you think about it, the Beatles put out some very simplistic stuff, lyrically, in their Rubber Soul years.

For example: "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man. You better run for life if you can. Catch you with another man, that's the end, little girl."

Now I ask you. What is that? There's no request for a Mars/Venus encounter session there. Nobody's spending the next 12 Wednesday afternoons in marriage therapy in that household. That's what I mean. Cut 'n' dried. Stuff an 8 year old can relate to more than we can. Though it's all still great, don't get me wrong. It's some of the best shit to sing along with.

Hecka sweet tuneage

I think I'll switch out the music in my car before I go to bed tonight. Kid A is a good CD, and a taste I arduously acquired after much patience, but it puts my head in a conceptually weird place right before I have to try and interact normally with others.

What should I put in instead? Album rock? That's some of Bunny's favorite music. She says she's the only kid in her 3rd grade class who's ever heard of the Moody Blues. All the other kids are into rap. That's probably because she's an only child, and BB and I are hecka old; she's sheltered.

Did I tell ever you my hecka story? I'm sitting at lunch somewhere, with two coworkers who were about ten years younger than me. I don't remember what they were talking about. I'd mostly tuned them out. Suddenly one of them remarks, "Yeah, and then he got hella mad -" she glances at me. "uh, hecka mad."

Can you stand that she cleaned up her invented language on my account?

OK, here's what's going in:

• Squirrel Nut Zippers, Hot (thus replacing one concept album with a peppier one)
• Traffic, Low Spark of High Heeled Boys (self-explanatory)
• Eagles, Hotel California (just kidding, Jo)
• Jethro Tull, War Child (don't know that one well, except "Bungle in the Jungle")
• Pearl Jam, Vitalogy (so I'll have something hella hecka deep to sing along with)

And mebbe one of those 9 Grammies, too

We bow to the superior musical ear that belongs to our own Jo Spanglemonkey. BB and I finally ran the comparison. Jo called it, and it's true: The song "Love of My Life" from Supernatural gets its theme from the Poco Allegretto movement of Brahms Symphony No. 3 in f minor.

You can clearly hear it on these links. Very cool!

All righty then. To work. Sweetie, get me Brahms' people on the line. Carlos owes royalties, big time!

Q directs 'Cinderella'

John de Lancie (who played the omniscient Q on Star Trek TNG) will make his directorial debut in Sacto. He's put together a version of the opera 'Cinderella' that's lean an' mean.

The opera "La Cenerentola" first opened in the candlelit, horse-and-buggy world of 1817, the same year Jane Austen revised "Persuasion" and Mississippi became the 20th state. "Cenerentola," or "Cinderella," has been sung ever since. But the production that opens this weekend at the Community Center Theater won't match the ones seen in the days of composer Gioacchino Rossini - or even at some big-budget companies today. Shorn of redundant songs and acted as well as sung, this "Cenerentola" is meant to suit the expectations of a modern audience, said director John de Lancie.

"What I can bring to the mix as a stage director and actor is apply those rules to an opera," added de Lancie, a Los Angeles-based director, actor and producer.

The CCT has been heavily promoting this gig on the local radio station that carries Air America - clearly they're looking to appeal to hip midtowners, and the suburbanites who wish they were. Now to check my social calendar ...

When good shawls happen to bad people

Go see our girl Courtney, looking perfectly sober. Perfectly! Completely rehabilitated!

For that matter, you might as well throw integrity out the window, and read the rest of Go Fug Yourself's fashion remarks about the Emmys. I didn't watch it, but the annual parade of bad gowns remains a hallmark of the event for me. O guilty pleasure.