Like most of the rest of the world, I was entranced to see that the spawn of the Dear Leader had got hisself a squeeze. A singer and whatnot, you know, as leaders are wont to do.
And I thought that the news that the biggest hit of the squeeze singer was Excellent Horse-like Lady would set the electro-sphere alight. But not it seems, everyone is taking it very calmly. After all, if America gave us Horse with No Name and the Beatles could give us Everybody's got something to hide except me and my monkey, then a musical juxtaposition of ladies and equines is a mere trifle, yes? While go0gle gave me umpteen trillion hits in a part of a nanosecond, they seemed to be all straight news stories.
One can listen about the horse-like lady here. (******)
Except this one: not taking the p*ss such as I have failed to do, but just commenting quite...yes, just quite.
Actually, it looks like a fascinating blog to check out.
(******) Oh dear god, I've just listened to it. If we moved North Korea to some obscure corner of Europe, I reckon we'd have a new Eurovision masterpiece on our hands. But I'd really love to know the words...
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
11 July 2012
30 June 2012
pigs on the wing
How's this for a line from a gig review:
"Then there comes a sound I can't quite place, like bacon frying, but amplified. It's applause."
"the wavelengths and the resonance align"....writing and playing I like.
"Then there comes a sound I can't quite place, like bacon frying, but amplified. It's applause."
"the wavelengths and the resonance align"....writing and playing I like.
22 June 2012
Sometime in the last few years - by which I mean a decade or so, they fly past so quickly - I started noticing and thinking about changes in popular music. I've been keen on popular music, of various genres I suppose, for some time but don't pretend to be an expert (until I've got a skinful, then I'm absolutely like every other expert).
But I started thinking that somehow songs were getting more realistic, more reflective of a broader take on life. The pop of the 1950s seemed so "white-bread" I guess (yes, this post will be littered with unsubstantiated, vast generalisations). The 60s were love love love and surfin', but even the evolution of pop/rock etc into the last 60s and early 70s, ie hard rock or whatever, didn't seem to change the subject matter (maybe exempt the Hair/JC Superstar kind of thing).
Hard rock bands had to slow down occasionally, hence Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love. A ballad, you see. Here, if you feel the need.
Then disco. Then punk, but somehow with the rosy tinted glasses of hindsight punk never really plumbed the depths of human emotion.
Sometime around this period someone will no doubt reference Joy Division but as I never heard them then, I can make another outrageous generalisation and move right along.
After returning to Australia in the late 80s I had a lot of catching up to do, as I'd been in parts of the world where contemporary music just wasn't available.
Slowly getting to my point, I think when I first heard Betterman I started thinking that popular music was reaching into the types of lives that many people were living where the world wasn't all roses and kittens. And I guess then I started thinking about the changes in society that I'd been privileged to have witnessed for some 50 years. But that's for another time.
Then this. That's my point. Spine-tingling on so many levels.
More later.
But I started thinking that somehow songs were getting more realistic, more reflective of a broader take on life. The pop of the 1950s seemed so "white-bread" I guess (yes, this post will be littered with unsubstantiated, vast generalisations). The 60s were love love love and surfin', but even the evolution of pop/rock etc into the last 60s and early 70s, ie hard rock or whatever, didn't seem to change the subject matter (maybe exempt the Hair/JC Superstar kind of thing).
Hard rock bands had to slow down occasionally, hence Bad Company's Feel Like Makin' Love. A ballad, you see. Here, if you feel the need.
Then disco. Then punk, but somehow with the rosy tinted glasses of hindsight punk never really plumbed the depths of human emotion.
Sometime around this period someone will no doubt reference Joy Division but as I never heard them then, I can make another outrageous generalisation and move right along.
After returning to Australia in the late 80s I had a lot of catching up to do, as I'd been in parts of the world where contemporary music just wasn't available.
Slowly getting to my point, I think when I first heard Betterman I started thinking that popular music was reaching into the types of lives that many people were living where the world wasn't all roses and kittens. And I guess then I started thinking about the changes in society that I'd been privileged to have witnessed for some 50 years. But that's for another time.
Then this. That's my point. Spine-tingling on so many levels.
More later.
14 May 2012
17 January 2012
25 November 2011
let's go
Well not the actual title of the song but right in the groove for a Friday night.
It still makes me smile...as do some of the comments.
Reaching even further back into the recesses of the memory, we get this. Holy moley, there are actually some memories not exterminated by the quantities of beer that used to accompany going to a barn where these blokes might be playing.
It still makes me smile...as do some of the comments.
Reaching even further back into the recesses of the memory, we get this. Holy moley, there are actually some memories not exterminated by the quantities of beer that used to accompany going to a barn where these blokes might be playing.
Good times....
14 November 2011
cheap wine
We went to see this concert here in rapidly warming Capricornia a few weeks ago.
It was exactly the same here in RARA land, with the possible exception that where we were standing, we could get a little cool breeze occasionally. Under the tent where the true rockers were, was probably a little warm.
The voice was awful to start with but gradually hit its straps.
Ian Moss was little short of supernatural: how he can keep going for two hours, with blistering (sorry about the cliche) solos every so often is just amazing.
The only real complaint was some of our fellow audience members who talked - and yelled, and argued, and had tedious in-depth personal discussions - most of the night. Second last song was Four Walls, performed with tenderness and restraint, and I could barely hear it as various groups around us continued the conversations/arguments/ diatribes they'd obviously started the previous weekend - or possibly previous decade.
It was exactly the same here in RARA land, with the possible exception that where we were standing, we could get a little cool breeze occasionally. Under the tent where the true rockers were, was probably a little warm.
The voice was awful to start with but gradually hit its straps.
Ian Moss was little short of supernatural: how he can keep going for two hours, with blistering (sorry about the cliche) solos every so often is just amazing.
The only real complaint was some of our fellow audience members who talked - and yelled, and argued, and had tedious in-depth personal discussions - most of the night. Second last song was Four Walls, performed with tenderness and restraint, and I could barely hear it as various groups around us continued the conversations/arguments/ diatribes they'd obviously started the previous weekend - or possibly previous decade.
Having to drive a fair way home, there was no wine, cheap or otherwise.
13 November 2011
like a rolling stone
Well there's stuff in this story that I wouldn't have dreamt of. Margaret Trudeau? Ronnie Wood? Really?
Anyway out of the gazillions of words that have been written about the Stones, these are some more.
Time to get some old CDs out.
Anyway out of the gazillions of words that have been written about the Stones, these are some more.
Time to get some old CDs out.
12 November 2011
black is balck....is baclk....is black
Du de duddle duh... du du daaaa, du du duddle duh daaaaa... da dee duddle da du du daaaaaa ...... di duh da duh da daaaaoooooomph-a-oo
oooompha-a-ooooooompha- na naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa etc...
For translation, go here.
Yep, that's what it is.
Also, have lost font options. Again. Buddddyyy blogggggerrrr.
oooompha-a-ooooooompha- na naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa etc...
For translation, go here.
Yep, that's what it is.
Also, have lost font options. Again. Buddddyyy blogggggerrrr.
No....they're back.
Is back.
04 November 2011
rough boy
I caught up with an old school friend last weekend - hadn't seen him for over 40 years. We exchanged e-mail addresses and cemented the reunion online...so to speak.
Epically strange...still digesting some aspects. Anyway given all of that I figured it was relatively safe to give him the link to VVB: it's semi-anonymous but various folk, mainly from work, have the secret password.
He wrote back to say he'd spent a pleasant (yes, I know...) few hours trawling my back pages and passed some kind comments on what he had read. Yes, I know, redux.
Anyway I've done similarly tonight and was quite taken with how much I used to write before I either (a) started trying to be wry, or (b) just got lazy.
All of which is simply a prelude to something entirely different, namely this. I'm kind of a ZZ Top fan but I don't think I've ever seen a David Lynch film (he is a filmmaker isn't he, or an I mistaking him for someone else?). Not that it matters; it's a quite entrancing little article which is borne out by the entrancing little comments thread.
The ideal thing to post on a Friday night...sleep well.
Epically strange...still digesting some aspects. Anyway given all of that I figured it was relatively safe to give him the link to VVB: it's semi-anonymous but various folk, mainly from work, have the secret password.
He wrote back to say he'd spent a pleasant (yes, I know...) few hours trawling my back pages and passed some kind comments on what he had read. Yes, I know, redux.
Anyway I've done similarly tonight and was quite taken with how much I used to write before I either (a) started trying to be wry, or (b) just got lazy.
All of which is simply a prelude to something entirely different, namely this. I'm kind of a ZZ Top fan but I don't think I've ever seen a David Lynch film (he is a filmmaker isn't he, or an I mistaking him for someone else?). Not that it matters; it's a quite entrancing little article which is borne out by the entrancing little comments thread.
The ideal thing to post on a Friday night...sleep well.
20 October 2011
the muzic, i haz it in me
@ToDiscuss.
choose McCartney over Lennon.... my god.To be fair, McCartney is considerably better at the criteria of being a living artist...
Don't worry about the singular of criteria, that word evidently doesn't exist if what I see every day is any evidence.
14 October 2011
wah wah
Some readers of this little blog will probably recognise this quote:
And in fact, after consumption of a couple of aged-in-the-fridge roses(*) at work and then a couple of gin & tonics at home, I feel a bit philosophical too.
I feel especially philosophical about some stuff that I read this morning and thought, "I could weave a little blog post about that" and promptly forgot about it/them until tonight when I was looking to weave just such a little blog post.
I wish I could remember them - quite poignant they were.
(*) Note to readers who have an RSS feed on this blog, for whatever unaccountable reason: something I did when putting that asterisk in was obviously a macro for "publish", because that's what happened. Hope you liked the original spelling, comes to to you courtesy of Seagrams and Schweppes.
It's a new one on me but seems entirely plausible.
"Eric Idle tells how after Harrison was stabbed in his home by an intruder in 1999, he was being carried out by two medics who had only just started work. Harrison looked up from his stretcher and asked, "So, what do you think of the job so far?"
And in fact, after consumption of a couple of aged-in-the-fridge roses(*) at work and then a couple of gin & tonics at home, I feel a bit philosophical too.
I feel especially philosophical about some stuff that I read this morning and thought, "I could weave a little blog post about that" and promptly forgot about it/them until tonight when I was looking to weave just such a little blog post.
I wish I could remember them - quite poignant they were.
(*) Note to readers who have an RSS feed on this blog, for whatever unaccountable reason: something I did when putting that asterisk in was obviously a macro for "publish", because that's what happened. Hope you liked the original spelling, comes to to you courtesy of Seagrams and Schweppes.
24 June 2011
all the leaves are
Although I first read about them some years ago, I have just discovered the Decemberists. Calloo callay.
05 June 2011
complicated
Appropos of absolutely nothing at all, I had a random thought about quite common phrase. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and this is what I found:
Lovers of 60s and 70s pop and rcok might like this one. Even though youtube shows other songs, I think they were pretty much one-hit wonders with this one.
The form without the hyphen is also commonly seen, but can beWho'd have thought it was so complicated?
construed as a "wild chase", but not an inevitably fruitless one, after a
possibly domesticated and flightless goose, rather than after a wild
goose.
Lovers of 60s and 70s pop and rcok might like this one. Even though youtube shows other songs, I think they were pretty much one-hit wonders with this one.
31 May 2011
drop bears
Seriously. If you downvoted this you're no better than aThis is the "this" referred to above (NB: safe link, esp. if you likez de musickz.
panda who won't screw to save it's species.
I agree. Fuck dem pandaz, this is the duck's guts.
Also, as quote lifted verbatim, the superfluous apostrophe is not mine. But I felt it needed a reincarnation in case it could find a place to hide.
29 April 2011
xxxx insert wedding musical references here xxxx
While we were waiting for Escape to the Country to come on and thereby complete our evening, Mrs VVB and I were kind of obliged to watch the nuptials. I was quite taken with the two bros done up like human Christmas trees - I have never seen so much gold braid since Field Marshall Amin departed the scene - and that Harry's hair has probably never seen a comb since he was two.
Anyway it was a jolly jape for Mrs VVB and me and then they announce some hymn commissioned especially for the occasion. The opening bars sounded and - I swear this is the truth - Mrs VVB and I looked at each and said, "Rip off! But what from?"
It took me a minute or two. Electric Dreams. I kid you not.
Anyway Escape to the Country's on, so ta ta.
Anyway it was a jolly jape for Mrs VVB and me and then they announce some hymn commissioned especially for the occasion. The opening bars sounded and - I swear this is the truth - Mrs VVB and I looked at each and said, "Rip off! But what from?"
It took me a minute or two. Electric Dreams. I kid you not.
Anyway Escape to the Country's on, so ta ta.
23 April 2011
the music, i haz it inside
Yesterday, after 30 sec0nds of morning TV (please don't tell me people actually watch that stuff) I decided to delve into the mountainous mountains of concert DVDs what we own. Ended up having them on most of the day, what a day it was. The highlights:
Toto in 1990. Every rock star pose cliche known to man. But with fabulous musicianship such as you would only get from a bunch who began as session musos.
Cat Stevens in a very intimate concert singing songs from Teaser and the Firecat, accompanied by another bloke on guitar and - very occasionally - a bloke on bass. Apparently I was got this as a gift for Christmas, Mrs VVB was not happy when I did not recognise it as such.
What a voice. Then he introduces a song as one "I wrote before I entered my second life as a pop star." This was On the road to find out which of course contains the lines, "Kick out the devil's sin, pick up pick up the good book now." This of course before he picked up a different good book and entered a third life. At the end of the DVD, a short cartoon of Teaser and Firecat which I swear was voiced by Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan as most of it sounded like Ned Seagoon and Eccles.
Mid 70s Fleetwood Mac. Holy moloney can that Lindsay Buckingham play guitar. Gives you - or me, at least - the shits.
ELO. Great music, I retain a wholly irrational dislike of Jeff Lynne. But playing Do Ya is very cathartic, even me on an acoustic.
Neil Diamond - after 34 hours, it all sounds the same, but again, a great talent.
So today we went to JB and picked up a few more. The Who at the Isle of Wight 1970. I'd previously never seen any footage of Keith Moon in action. Once you have, the rest becomes clear.
Powderfinger's final concert at the Brisbane Riverstage. I wish I'd been there. Nothing short of magic.
Toto in 1990. Every rock star pose cliche known to man. But with fabulous musicianship such as you would only get from a bunch who began as session musos.
Cat Stevens in a very intimate concert singing songs from Teaser and the Firecat, accompanied by another bloke on guitar and - very occasionally - a bloke on bass. Apparently I was got this as a gift for Christmas, Mrs VVB was not happy when I did not recognise it as such.
What a voice. Then he introduces a song as one "I wrote before I entered my second life as a pop star." This was On the road to find out which of course contains the lines, "Kick out the devil's sin, pick up pick up the good book now." This of course before he picked up a different good book and entered a third life. At the end of the DVD, a short cartoon of Teaser and Firecat which I swear was voiced by Harry Secombe and Spike Milligan as most of it sounded like Ned Seagoon and Eccles.
Mid 70s Fleetwood Mac. Holy moloney can that Lindsay Buckingham play guitar. Gives you - or me, at least - the shits.
ELO. Great music, I retain a wholly irrational dislike of Jeff Lynne. But playing Do Ya is very cathartic, even me on an acoustic.
Neil Diamond - after 34 hours, it all sounds the same, but again, a great talent.
So today we went to JB and picked up a few more. The Who at the Isle of Wight 1970. I'd previously never seen any footage of Keith Moon in action. Once you have, the rest becomes clear.
Powderfinger's final concert at the Brisbane Riverstage. I wish I'd been there. Nothing short of magic.
21 November 2010
the zombies(#)
If you watch too much computer generated graphics - and if you watch any blockbuster films at all, (*) you will be watching far too much - then here is why you feel uneasy. They're calling it the "uncanny valley" because it's far more popular to coin a mindless rhyme than something that makes sense. Think 'Adam and Steve' for a similar effect.
But it's an interesting insight into how computers may be changing the way we operate. For a Fairfax insight into the same issue, see here.
Computers are certainly changing the way we operate at VVBSea. 'Cos some weeks, which feels like months, ago the pooter hung its bootstraps and refused to function no more, no more no more no more etc. We found a local bloke hwo promised to make it right but because it's a Dell, a new motherboard has to handmade by a Dell-accredited elf in a cave somewhere, so we still don't have it back. So we bought Mrs VVB a new laptop and it's all different, hence I've been at this post for seems like aeons. And I've lost all my bookmarks.
Whinge over.
(*) We don't watch any round these parts.
(#) She's not there is one of my all time favourite songs. The keyboard solo by Rod Argent was little short of magical for that genre at the time - and probably even moreso now, when computer generated crap dominates the airwaves.
But it's an interesting insight into how computers may be changing the way we operate. For a Fairfax insight into the same issue, see here.
Computers are certainly changing the way we operate at VVBSea. 'Cos some weeks, which feels like months, ago the pooter hung its bootstraps and refused to function no more, no more no more no more etc. We found a local bloke hwo promised to make it right but because it's a Dell, a new motherboard has to handmade by a Dell-accredited elf in a cave somewhere, so we still don't have it back. So we bought Mrs VVB a new laptop and it's all different, hence I've been at this post for seems like aeons. And I've lost all my bookmarks.
Whinge over.
(*) We don't watch any round these parts.
(#) She's not there is one of my all time favourite songs. The keyboard solo by Rod Argent was little short of magical for that genre at the time - and probably even moreso now, when computer generated crap dominates the airwaves.
25 September 2010
careless whispers
Unnecessary blood pressure raising inducement of the day was to see that the illogical and (again) unnecessary introduction of the American neologism "I could care less" to Australia. Saw this in a newspaper article.
Why and how does it happen. I used to have a theory that most of these fad sayings came in via FM radio, but I'm not so sure. Why do people do it? Does it really make you look hip to say "I spent a couple hundred dollars today?"
It would be supremely ironic were I now to comment, "meh."
So I won't.
Have started travelling for work again and needing to pass a couple (of) hours in airports and on planes last week, I bought myself a copy of Australian Guitar magazine, mainly for the article on Matt Bellamy from Muse, a band in which I've become quite interested, not least for their thematic obsession with aliens but mainly for their stage shows.
The song structures are nothing to write home about but oh man, the staging! Go to youtube and look at some of their Wembley concert from a couple (of) years back, and other concerts.
Imagining the sensation of being in the crowd puts me in mind of something I've read many years ago, but not sure what. Maybe taking a gram of soma and going to the feelies in Brave New World? Wasn't it Brave New World that had some type of super-saxophones playing music? That Wembley concert looks downright amazing in the number of senses it would assault.
Muse is coming to Australia shortly but I doubt I'll be able to get to a concert. In any case I kind of think I'd be a fish out of water, with or without soma.
Whinge of the day: I don't know what's happened with Blogger but now I can only move pictures within the post one paragraph at a time. And for the two photos in this post where I want jump the first photo further down the story, I can't do it. Like, bummer.
20 August 2010
only one woman
I blog
You blog
He, she or it blogs.
Not so much turning Japanese as turning Latin.
I love life, I love it a lot better after a few sherbets.
Ah, Graeme Bonnet. What a voice. My evening is complete.
No it's not, does anyone - I mean anyone - have a copy of Linda Sue Dixon by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? Genuine blue-eyed soul? It's seared into my memory, but nonetheless my memory would be improved by hearing that song again.
You blog
He, she or it blogs.
Not so much turning Japanese as turning Latin.
I love life, I love it a lot better after a few sherbets.
Ah, Graeme Bonnet. What a voice. My evening is complete.
No it's not, does anyone - I mean anyone - have a copy of Linda Sue Dixon by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels? Genuine blue-eyed soul? It's seared into my memory, but nonetheless my memory would be improved by hearing that song again.
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