Sunday, December 23, 2007

three on the IMDb

My friend Toshi just told me he's on the Internet Movie Database. He's working with Ray Kurzweil on his film, Singularity Is Near. Looking forward to seeing that.

With my friend Jim, that makes two people I know on the IMDb.

Nope, Bob G. makes three . . .

Godspeed, y'all.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

to all the blogs I've loved before . . .

Before I say Happy Holidays and enter winter torpor, I thought I'd mention some cool blogs old & new.

Sickmalls (aka That Mall's Sick And That Store's Dead!) has kept an eagle eye on the fading malls and retail spaces of Hampton Roads Virginia. Lately, old Ward's TV ads and big wayward KFC buckets have been the loss leaders. Oh, that and the new Stuckey's I couldn't believe existed.

Music Thing is too darn famous (among music geeks) to mention--'cept to say I mention it all the time.

BibliOdyssey, with its many cool images of book art and trippy bits of long ago arcana, is a wonder to behold.

ConcreteBeat posts videos of musicians & performers in the streets and subway of New York City.

The Boat Lullabies
(the blog arm of the very cool found photo world of Square America) is a new acquaintance made through yet another neat blog, PLC LinkDump.

PLC also navigated this beflanneled old hick traveler to the planet FABULON (p'haps in a glamorous galaxy near the Mitzi Gaynor nebula, or somewhere between Pluto and Uranus). Indeed, I arrived just in time for a homage to Will Geer and Ellen Corby (patriarch & matriarch of The Waltons and beyond).

Likewise cascading to likes of Awesome Tapes of Africa and the Brazilian music at Forro em Vinil.

At PLC there's a great Bollywood spy caper/dance number complete with Santa.

Anyway, that should be enough to entertain (or induce vertigo) until I get out of suspended animation.

If not, there's always my wife's gnarly art blog. Or if boredom's truly abiding, audiokayness should scare that (or you) away. Or go to uberkayness to watch ice melt.

Holiday warmth and a fine '08 to all . . .

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

the legacies of Dan and Karlheinz

My wife found this great testimonial about singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg, who recently passed away. Kudos to the writer, Don Hammontree of the New Bedford Standard-Times.

Recently, Music Thing made a call out to its readers to write about the legacy of avant-garde classical composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Last I checked, there were 17 comments.

Being something of a classic rock android/folk rock wuss, I heard Dan Fogelberg's recording of "Part of the Plan" and got Souvenirs and his two albums after that. Ultimately, due to the musical mutant I later became, and p'haps because of a sea change in Dan's work ("Longer" and that period), I left off after his record with Tim Weisberg.

All the same, I'd like to think of Dan & Karlheinz as both in their lives and now in their deaths giving us a wide latitude of expression:

Permission to sing sweetly.

And permission not to . . .

Friday, December 14, 2007

Juan Matos Capote on free103point9



As I promised
, here's video of Juan Matos Capote performing on DJ Mangoon's online radio show on free103point9. And as in the Thick Wisps video, he's armed with a circuit bent Omnichord, a DIY Pink Oscillator and sundry effects pedals.




Along with his work in Thick Wisps, Juan put out The Subway Aural Recordings, a CD of music created from field recordings made in the NYC subway. He's studied with circuit bender Reed Ghazala and composer Pauline Oliveros. And yep, he's a visual artist, too.




It's interesting, the subdued color in these videos. Except for a salmon colored stomp box off to the right, it looks like film noir.

Or maybe that's just because of the dark hat he's wearing in first two videos.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Thick Wisps on All Hallows' Eve



Here's a video snippet of the live online radio show Thick Wisps played this past Halloween (courtesy therealmangoon).

As you can see Thick Wisps have their black robes on and electric candles lit to raise some spooky sonic emanations.

Juan Matos Capote (on the left) has at his command a circuit bent Omnichord (remember Jolene on hers?) and his homebrew Pink Oscillator.

Giancarlo Bracchi (to the right) has what looks like a Moog/Big Briar Etherwave Theremin and numerous cool pedals & such.

Since then, Juan Matos Capote has played on DJ Mangoon's show on free103point9 online radio. Hopefully, some video from that will be coming up soon.

Monday, December 10, 2007

a woman's life in pictures

PCL LinkDump just posted about a cool entry at The Boat Lullabies called The Way of All Flesh.

The entry's a series of photos that follows a woman from her early girlhood in the mid 1930s to about 1978. The pictures were found in cosmetics case bought at a flea market. The identity of the woman is unknown.

About as interesting as the photos are the many comments that range from something like "these pictures are fake/it's not the same woman" to "this woman's hot/beautiful" to "wow, this is so cool" to "what are a stranger's photos doing online?".

FWIW, I'm of the she's beautiful/this is cool camp. Go see for yourself . . .

And, indeed, more pics crop up later on . . .

Sunday, December 9, 2007

dang ol' Hurray for Valleydale commercial!!!



Some folks want to save the world or spend a lost weekend in Vegas.

Me, I've been wanting to see the Hurray for Valleydale commercial. And now, thanks to AtomicShows and YouTube, I can . . .

With this, the Wild, Wild World of Animals credits and Shakey's Pizza ad online, I'd better find a new ambition or put my affairs in order.

There's much ado about being a Virginian (well, back in Virginia at least). When I hear that music, watch those singing, marching cartoon pigs and see that outline of my home state on the Valleydale ham package, I finally understand what the fuss is all about.

All hail it's Valleydale!

UPDATE:

Valleydale is still in business and has its own archive of TV ads.

The YouTube posting above is the best version of the classic ad most folks remember. But I like the slightly updated, shortened version you'll find at the Valleydale site. Click on the second thumbnail in the top row, the B&W image of the kinda mod looking family, to see it.

Aunt Mimi video hits the 500 mark



Acoustic duo Aunt Mimi have been staying busy playing out. They just had a gig last Thursday at the Harvest Cafe in Hudson MA.

So it's not too surprising their front yard video has hit 500 viewings.

If you want to hear them live, their website is a good place to check for their next show.

Aunt Mimi will be taking a holiday break, but Derm Whitaker (fellow on the left) is gigging with True West this coming weekend.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Dutch needle drop on Carl Douglas



"What is this shi . . .": Carl Douglas having fun on Dutch TV.

I vote this video as the one most likely to be restaged a hundred years hence by historical reenactors.

Were I around for that future day, I'd play the white jacketed host with the pink champale.

Found on PLC LinkDump, posted by ripspique.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

The World Of Kane on Jimmy Webb

Checking out various blogs recommended by Google Reader, I found this cool entry on songwriter Jimmy Webb on The World Of Kane.

I see also an entry on the influential 5th Dimension I'll have to check out.

Indeed, the 5th Dimension's version of Webb's "Up, Up and Away" may be the first song I consciously heard playing in my head after it was finished playing (on my dad's 8-Track, no less). Unused to this sort of aural "afterimage", I thought I was going nuts.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

on uberkayness--double arcana

cassette arcana--a vaguely Warholian 15 minutes to Tape It Like It Is
(related audiokayness)

childhood arcana--when Dick Dastardly and the Banana Splits roamed the earth

better to have loved & blogged . . .

I forget which way back relative of mine my mom said "died laughing at the Fat Lady".

But given my current addiction to The Dumpster, I figure my number's about up and a spot's awaiting me in Schadenfreude Hell*.

I can't help reading the teen breakup postings there. And I can't help but laugh at, well, some of them.

I don't know jack or jill about generative art. The Generator.x blog led me hence.

Also to the equally cool We Feel Fine, where a broad spectrum of "I feel . . " & "I am feeling . ." statements are culled from blogs and arranged in various categories and graphical representations.

I really like both of these iterations of online art.

Tho' I hope The Dumpster will understand: I just wanna be friends . . .

---

[*Ungainly & Ineffectual Sidebar Apologia: As these Dumpster postings are gathered from 2005, I figure these lovelorn have since moved from romantic ruination on to brighter days.

Indeed, the posts that make me laugh so hard are the ones that go something like "my girlfriend dumped me but I was ready to dump her . . . almost finished that stupid English paper". One gets the (p'haps false) impression the moving on took all of 4 seconds.

And all the posts are so spiced with text message abbreviations (omfg! ttyl) and warmed-over gangsta slang as to make my informal prose seem like that of a very tweedy Oxford don circa 1874.

All the same, my time in Hell's assured.]