Category Archives: musics

Canadian content

Nick sent me a link to the marvelous but not perhaps universally likely-to-be-appreciated Colorectal Surgeon song by Bowser and Blue, whom I should of course have been already familiar with. I wasn’t, so I did a bunch of watching of ‘related’ videos. Some belong in my ethnocalumny category, some are funnier if you happen to be Canadian, but I like ’em all… Here’s a paean to poutine:

…and if that leaves you hungering for more, consider I’m Glad I Live in Canada, Canadian Culture, Halifax Harbour, When Lawyers Take Viagra, and It Ain’t Easy Being White

Tsk tsk

This one somehow escaped me in my sheltered youth, but I’m making up for it:

say the Notes: from “The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, written by Dr. Seuss himself, we have this musical number featuring the film’s villain Dr. Terwilliker getting dressed to conduct his 500-boy piano symphony…” and there’s mooore:

How did this ever get made? Here’s some more context:

If you’ve somehow managed to avoid it thus far, it’s a very ’50’s, very Seussian musical. Simply put, it’s the story of a boy falling in love with a plumber while trying to escape from a maximum-security piano camp. It’s also the story of how movie-making can go awry.

As it turned out, Ted ‘Dr. Seuss’ Geisel hated the experience of being involved in the movie, and detested the final product. He forbade any other Seuss material to be adapted to the big screen during his life time. (Sound reasoning, as it turned out.)

In turn, Columbia Pictures lost faith in the film mid-production, yanked promotion, cut the budget, and cut huge portions out of the finished movie.The plans for an epic children’s fantasy along the caliber of Wizard of Oz were dashed, and the film received tepid reviews upon release.

And yet there’s still something there, and it’s a movie that needs to be seen. Especially if you’re a Seuss fan.
(from I’m Learning to Share)

Wooten Bros

Darryl Landry sent me the link to this, in response to yesterday’s excess:

…and I’ll bookend it with

I don’t find these as incomprehensible or inaccessible as the Die Like A Dog example, perhaps because I dimly grasp what the musicians are doing.

The outer limits

or maybe outré… Peter Brotzmann (alto & tenor saxophones, tarogato), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet, electronics), William Parker (double bass), and Hamid Drake (drums, percussion) are the Die Like a Dog Quartet. Their performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival 1995 is available, 9:31 of it. I know precisely ONE person who is equipped and inclined to appreciate this sort of thing. All I can do is shake my head in wonder. Can’t say I like it, let alone understand it, but I guess I’m willing to accept that there’s something to understand. From WFMU’s Beware of the Blog.

Gliss

About 5 years ago I happened upon a Glissentar

in a music store where I ummmm just happened to be (happens a lot…) and didn’t resist. For those unfamiliar with the instrument, it’s sort of a baritone oud (in terms of its string setup, with 5 unison pairs and a single bass string), fretless, with piezo pickup. I haven’t really tamed it to my purposes, for reasons that I don’t quite understand, and a couple of days ago I came close to deciding to sell it (not something I am in the habit of doing with instruments –I buy them, and have them). I’ve reconsidered that rash decision, and now I’m thinking about new departures I might assay instead. Since my chequered musical career has been almost entirely acoustic, I’m pretty clueless about what happens and could happen when an instrument is plugged in, but I guess it’s not too late to learn. I’ve found several YouTubish bits that suggest possible directions starting with Robert Godin himself talking about the glissentar:

But how can a player actually use the instrument? It’s interesting to see Michael Vick’s guitaristic approach, but it’s not what I want to do myself:

I’m more attracted to Fatih Ahiskali’s approach to the instrument as a variety of oud, and his chops are pretty impressive (he uses both the traditional oud plectrum and an idiosyncratic finger style):

and this, where he ventures into classical guitar repertoire:

and THIS one is really spectacular:

I also found some worthwhile bits on setup and string alternatives (n.b. Savarez Alliance).