Liverpool (sometimes "Live-a-Paul")
is a port city in England connected to the Atlantic Ocean by way of the
Mersey River Estuary. The Liverpool Docks stretch for 7.5 miles and are
the world's largest enclosed interconnected dock system.
Liverpool was the home port of the Titanic, Britannic, and the
Lusitania. During the early 1800s, 40% of the world's trade passed
through Liverpool. During World War II, Liverpool was the destination of 90% of the U.S. liberty ships full of supplies and war materials. Liverpool was bombed by the Germans more than any other English city besides London.
Liverpool was at the crossroads to the world. Youngsters from Liverpool saw the world pass before their eyes from the docks.
Music Association: Otis Redding - Dock Of The Bay
The Pentagon Pictures
June 14, 2011
The National Archives released the full Pentagon Papers,
yesterday, which essentially declassifies the
information already
publicly available. However a third of the information has never been
released and includes documents unrelated to the events leading up to
the Vietnam War.
Most astounding of the unrelated documents are rare pictures and memos
relating to rare pictures.
One rare picture is a picture of the R.M.S. Titanic snapped 99 years ago on
April
15, 1912 just before the stern of the ship sunk below the water. The
film was not developed until much later that year, due to the picture
having been taken near the start of a fresh roll of film.
Another picture shows U.S. Air Force officers preparing the A-12
supersonic jet for radar tests at Area 51. The corresponding memo
identifies the plane as the source of many UFO stories and Area 51
myths.
Music
Associations: Nickelback - Photograph (2007); Def Leppard - Photograph
(1983); Ringo Starr - Photograph (1973)
China Has More Fun Than America
June 10, 2011
Here's the drill: China's Chendu
Zoo tested their emergency preparedness last week by shooting
a guy in a Tigger costume.
The most wonderful thing about the drill is that Tigger's the only one.
The Minnesota Zoo should consider imitating the Chendu Zoo's emergency
training.
This week, the Minnesota Zoo killed an endangered Mexican Gray Wolf
because a tranquilizer would take too long. They didn't even
try.
[more info 1,
2,
& 3
]
Music Association: Guns 'N Roses
- Welcome To The Jungle
Flavors of American Music
June 9, 2011
Today's Google logo celebrates the life of Les
Paul (Lester William Polsfuss) who invented the electric
guitar, which made him instrumental
in the birth of rock music.
It's good you are reading this instead of listening to me, because I
don't talk in italics. People listening to me don't always know when
I'm kidding.
The problem with defining the definitive birth of rock is that you have
to draw lines to differentiate it from other music. Rock isn't jazz,
which isn't blues, which isn't soul or country, which isn't gospel or
folk, which isn't classical but it might be classic rock by now...
Blues Brothers
Elwood: "What
kind of music do you usually have here?"
Claire, Bob's Country Bunker: "Oh, we got both kinds. We got
country and western."
If I'm singing a song, I don't have to pigeonhole it into a particular
genre. It doesn't matter, not to me. But music stores separate the
music based on what the record label says the music is (or they make
their own decisions). And record labels contractually specify
acceptable music.
That Thing You Do
Mr White: "And
you're in a
tough spot, Jimmy, because you didn't read the PlayTone contract that
you yourself signed. It says, you do what I say. And I say, you cover
these songs from the PlayTone catalog. You record 'That Thing You Do'
in Spanish. You get one cut per side of the LP, but I don't want any of
this lover's lament crap. I want something peppy, something happy,
something up-tempo. I want something snappy."
I'm re-reading Studs Terkel's Giants of Jazz
(1957) which tells the stories of King Oliver, who made the muted
cornet famous, and Louis Armstrong, who idolized John Oliver and became
the ambassador of jazz. My problem with Giants of Jazz
is that it tells the 20th century story. I want to know the 19th
century story and the 18th century story.
Brass bands of New Orleans in the late 1800s
had a flavor of
music for every occasion. Happy music for carnivals. Slow spiritual
wails for funerals. A mix blended for everything inbetween. It was all
jazz. And it wasn't. It was the blues... sometimes, and it was
gospel...
sometimes. Or folk. Or country. Not that they're the same. The 2am
blues rift is not the 8pm swing medley.
New Orleans gave jazz an education and a stage, but it wasn't
where jazz (and blues and rock) was born. Its origins were more humble.
O Brother, Where Art Thou
Everett as Jordan Rivers: "Sir, the Soggy Bottom Boys have
been steeped in old-timey material. Heck, we're silly with it."
Many histories argue with themselves over whether slave plantations
restricted the music of slaves or encouraged musical entertainment by
slaves. The conclusion is that both extremes were true, plus a lot of
middle ground. Field hollers, shouts, and moans were part of
plantation life and plantation music. Jazz imitates some of the calls
and responses, as does gospel worship. Drums were banned in
some
states. Instruments were improvised.
Casablanca
Sam: "Who
's got trouble?"
Crowd: "We've got trouble!"
Sam: "How much trouble?"
Crowd: "Too much trouble!"
Sam: "Well
now, don't you frown, just knuckle down, and knock on wood."
How can you know what music was like on slave plantations? It's not
like someone took a picture.
Someone did. John Rose painted this painting Old Plantation
sometime between 1785 and 1795 near Beaufort, South Carolina. From the
right, a gudugudu is drummed with two drumsticks. A four-stringed
xalam-hoddu-molo is being plucked; this is the original banjo [shutter]. Two women
shake scarf-like rattles.
The painting is currently housed in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk
Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia, but it may have to find its way
to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.
Music Associations: Bessie Smith
- Back Water Blues; Louis Armstrong - Heebie Jeebies
Most
banjo playing gives me the heebie jeebies.
June 8, 2011
It's been weeks
since I posted Cat
Myths, which included some cat animations (find the 2nd cat-dolphin gif).
It's time for more.
Moire
the cat owns (or is owned by) Kay
(lowdope) of Tokyo. This video
has been viewed 23 million times.
Virtual cats take less care and feeding than real cats. This mother and
kitten are from Russia by dragomirnet86 and have been viewed
25 million times -- all
since May 26, 2011.
This video
(better with sound - meeeeeee
you) by sodlvs
has been viewed 8 million times. Looks like one of my kittens.
Music Association: The Beatles -
Three Cool Cats
Minnesota and Mississippi: The Hot Spots
June 7, 2011
Music Association: Buster
Poindexter - Hot Hot Hot
Do You Know The Way To
Shakopee?
No, But If You'll Hum A
Few Bars, I'll Fake It
June 7, 2011
If you love fine music, you will find no music finer than the piano
playing of Chico Marx. It's an art all its own. And it's a lesson in
how things can go right when they go wrong.
Chico's piano teacher, "a Viennese lady with a mustache," went right to
teaching Chico how to play the piano right handed. He was left not
knowing what to do with his left.
Chico, the most talkative Marx brother, doesn't tell the story. Neither
does Groucho. Harpo tells the story in his 475 page book. Apparently
with Harpo (like me), once he gets talking he can't shut up.
Harpo says (in his deep voice):
She
could teach only the right hand. When she played, she faked
with
the left. Chico kept asking, at first, what he should do with his left
hand, and the teacher would say sharply, "Never mind - that
hand's where the music is" - accenting the statement with a whack of
her ruler on her pupil's right knuckles. So Chico Marx became, at the
age of thirteen, the best one-hand piano player in New York City. Well,
the best one-hand piano player east of Lexington Avenue and north of
59th Street.
So when you watch Chico Marx play the piano, you'll
usually be watching from his right side.
Music Association: Chico Marx
& Sol Violinsky, I'm Daffy Over You
Movie Association: Animal Crackers
Chico:
I can't think of the finish.
Groucho:
That's strange I can't think of anything else.
And if Orange Vanilla
Hi-C
doesn't sound disgusting enough, you can still mix your drink the old
fashioned way by selecting one option and then another option -- for
the same cup.
