Coloured Glass

clank, cloink, boing

                 

I used to have a completely worn out VHS tape with this little Swedish short film - Music for one apartment and six drummers - that I forced everyone I knew to watch. Even brought a VCR with me at one point to show it to someone. And now it's all over the web. And I'm actually a little conflicted about this. Of course, I appreciate the fact that it's accessible to anyone. But there was something delicately precious about that tape that's just... lost. Maybe there is such a thing as good things being too readily available. Here it is anyway, as I do my bit to contribute to the loss of informational innocence.

had enough of silly lovesongs?

I was going to do another "Masterworks of modern poetry". On this song, if you must know. What an utterly craptastic thing of blandness.
But then for some reason I remembered this very touching essay by Proust, In Praise of Bad Music. Probably won't stop me from harping on bad music for very long, but it did give me pause.

And I think there's a very basic point about creative value in there; that we shouldn't be quick to dismiss emotive power in the name of good taste.

I really think it's worth reading in its entirety, so for the francophonically challenged, my translation here:

less deceptive than life

...is beeker's new blog about classical music. I'm joining her there, so maybe it's even our new blog. Anyhow, feel free to pop by. No prior experience required.

And I promise there won't be any 'classical music is slow and beautiful'-thing going on. Just a place for people who'd like to know more about great music to meet, listen, discuss. And if someone knows a bit that might help people out, sharing is encouraged.

On that note: just after doing this rant on how it's a shame to always introduce people to classical music by playing all the slow melodies that are used in boring tv ads, I found this video of comedian Rob Paravonian ripping the dreaded "Pachelbel's Canon in D" (a classical mainstay to the point that an old cello-teacher of mine used to crack "...composer unknown").

mondegreens galore

I really have no idea how to introduce this music video - except maybe: this is why lead singers should want to be careful with their articulation.
But please, do watch it. "Wishmaster: The misheard lyrics" - made with brilliant lack of technical flair by YouTube user "Kewen".

Real comedy gold takes off at about the 1:30 mark.

ode to iPod imperfection

Out running - and (literally) ran into a glorious streak of brilliantly imperfect songs; seems like, more often than not, it's actually these imperfections that endears a song to me.

Without the horribly prosaic verses of "Don't Worry Baby", we lose the epiphany of that stunning chorus. Everything will turn out alright, indeed.

How Lennon would have nailed 'While my guitar", and yet how Harrison's feeble falsetto just makes it that much crisper still.

How utterly craptastic the Bacharach arrangement of "Any Day Now"... and how much more powerful the force of Chuck Jackson, most underrated soulsinger ever. Guy had some pipes, to get any kind of soul out of that ditty.

How embarassingly sentimental Rice's "The Blower's Daughter"; and... well, that is how you feel sometimes, ain't it?

How Kelis messes up Outkast's "Dracula's Wedding" - and how hypnotic still the beat goes on.

How incredibly corny Tom Jones belting out "Promise Her Anything", and how I dare you to sit still for all 2:34 of swaying and sashaying.

How ridiculous the backstory of the Maharishi and Mia Farrow - nothing good should come from stories involving people called "Magic Alex" - yet how sharp and undated "Sexy Sadie" wa-wa's on...

And then, the run of imperfection ends, as these 3 are shuffled from the deck: Nina Simone "Love Me or Leave Me", Bowie "Wild is the Wind", Tuxedomoon "In a manner of speaking". Oh well, I guess perfection works fine, too.

the star-mangled spanner

See, I had to go and ruin it. After two perfectly respectable posts I can't resist this short clip of Carl Lewis absolutely destroying the national anthem. Remember Marvin Gaye's version, the smoothest national anthem in any country ever? Well, this is pretty much the exact opposite.
Highlight: the ESPN announcer's ad-lib - through tears: "...written by Francis Scott OFF-Key..."

does that make me crazy?

Been wondering for a while about the origin of the sampled material for Gnarls Barkley's monster hit Crazy. I heard it was from the score of an Italian western - and of course the people of the Splendida project provided the source. So much good stuff there. Enjoy "Nel Cimitero del Tucson" by Gianfranco and Gianpiero Reverberi. Incredible. Everything from bassline and chord progression to melodic material - even background strings - is nicked from that.

The track is from the Terence Hill "Django"-western Preparati la Bara!, 1968 ("Get the coffin ready!").

Listening to this little nugget, I have to say I prefer this to Gnarls Barkley by quite a bit.

Does that make me crazy? Probably.

the piano man

The posting of a great clip of Vlad Ashkenazy playing the first of Chopin's op. 10 etudes over at Beeker Ideas got me started on looking through YouTube for clips of my favourite pianist, the incomparable Sviatoslav Richter. This is the last one of the op. 10 etudes, "the revolutionary". Enjoy his incredible left hand power and the fabulous dynamic control in the right hand melody. Oh, and the stern grimace is pretty amazing as well.

Right next to it I found this Horowitz performance of one of the absolute best Scriabin etudes. I was never a big fan of the sweeping, capricious style of Horowitz, but it fits Scriabin's music perfectly.

And with this, I think I've avoided karmic retribution for the Tommy Seebach video by salvaging the "good pianist/evil keyboard player"-balance on my blog.

Yet another reason to love YouTube

Guess what showed up in Bill Simmons' latest article with  the labels "fantastic", "epic", "otherworldly" and scoring 119 points out of 100 on the 'Unintentional comedy scale' ?

Yes, it's Tommy Seebach and his 1977-video for "Apache"!

Behold how, through the power of the internet, people all over the world are now subjected to this strangely addictive opus; please appreciate the pain Danish people have endured living with this thing as our cultural heritage. Now, it's all yours. The horror! the horror!

why you should never underestimate old people

Here's my friend Maurice. About 5' 5" of absolute cool.

So we've been jamming a bit, and I don't really know much about him, other than he's wise and sweet and old and still very much able to play. Then this 30-something guy with a funny bone calls him out: "Hey, Rat Pack!"
And Maurice nods him off humbly: "oh no, you really can't call me rat pack, 'cause I really only played with Sammy and the guys a couple of years."

And the other guy stops talking.