(I thought it was just regular-stupid. But I was wrong!)
For several years after that song came out, I thought the singer was female and thought it was awesome that a lesbian anthem made it on the radio.
"Oh, how she rocks/in Keds and tube socks"
Awesome.
Iron Maiden may be the most wrongfully underrated band in the history of rock and roll. Fuck the haterz.
I don't think I've ever heard that song and I still haven't . I did just read the lyrics, and they brought back memories of high school, so they must be pretty good.
I mean how is e.g. "The Trooper" not recognized as a top-50 of all time song. "You'll take my life but I'll take yours too" is one of the best opening lines/music combos of all time.
I'm not sure if I've ever heard an Iron Maiden song either.
"Music" in 7 should probably be "riff." Still, the best.
I mean it is fucking LUDICROUS that e.g. the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Heart are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but Iron Maiden is not. What the fuck.
10: Nothing ludicrous about it all, dude. Let's face it -- the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is for wusses.
I'm not sure I've ever heard an Iron Maiden song, either. Is that Ozzy Osbourne's band?
Wikipedia says no. Then Black Sabbath is his band?
Wikipedia says yes.
This has been my knowledge of metal.
Not that I listened to them much, but Maiden's music always struck me as so fun. Except Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but that was delightfully silly.
Ogged -- buy or stream a copy of either "Piece of Mind" or "Number of the Beast." Totally accessible, fun, and supremely awesome.
15: Impressive! You appear to know even less about metal than me.
Let me take that back: it's actually really, really fun. I wonder if anyone has chiptuned this.
Ok, the kids and I are enjoying Piece of Mind.
Heart and Iron Maiden should both be in the R&RHoF.
Nobody deserves to be buried in Cleveland.
Hello Cleveland! Rock and Roll!
I mean, doesn't this show look about 11 billion times more fun than whatever the last stupid rock show you went to was? And this is them as old men.
I actually went to an Iron Maiden show once. It was pretty fun, despite the fact that it was in Irvine.
I can't remember the last rock show I went to. I think maybe The Police?
Well, and I bet that show was about 1/11,000,000,000 as fun as an aging Iron Maiden performing in Tokyo as per 27.
That's not a fair comparison, unless Burgettstown, PA, is comparable to Tokyo.
27 holds absolutely zero appeal to me. But then, I went to see TMBG a few nights ago. I was glad they hadn't been assassinated in 1989.
20 makes me remember that I actually listened to that a few years back. It didn't take.
Maybe the last show I saw was Cheerful Nirvana.
I saw the Mountain Goats the week before last. I'm going to say no to 27, but I bet John Darnielle would disagree with me.
32, 34 -- have you considered the possibility that you may be super lame?
My last stupid rock show was two nights ago and featured THOR, who has shaved his beard and didn't offer any lifestyle advice from the stage.
That Thor looks less likely to annoy Heebie on Facebook but also possibly less adept at making his own electric violin out of scrap wood.
I'm willing to bet those are not orthogonal.
One of the guitarists of the Iron Maiden tribute band Iron Maidens is featured on a Pennsylvania plastic surgeon's website.
I know that Neb wants us to guess the backstory for how he got to the site in 39.
I'm going to go with ... hmmmm.... maybe there's a new internet-era fetish, given the ubiquity of porn, for deliberately masturbating to the most innocuous possible material, i.e. material that would be consumable in a non-porn setting and wasn't designed as pornography. Deliberately searching out the equivalent of newspaper lingerie ads.
Neb's go-to place to satisfy this fetish is for breast-augmentation surgeon websites. And he found a good one. Am I wrong?
It's probably just somebody's birthday coming up.
||Seen at the kid's school, most awesomely lazy 5th grade science fair project ever. "XBox." Project consists of a large cardboard display folder with a large blown-up picture of an XBox. Next to it are handwritten statements with the kid's thoughts XBox ("I wish it was portable device and I could take it with me"), combined with a printout of the Wikipedia Page about the XBox taped to the cardboard.|>
Failed comment post, repeat.
My first gig was Iron Maiden. Circa 1985/86. They didn't disappoint, although arguably that's already post-classic Maiden. I have to admit, though, that while I do still occasionally listen to some of my teenage metal faves, Iron Maiden haven't aged as well for me as some of the others.
Hours were spent learning to play this, on an acoustic guitar, before I got my first electric:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4YTB5FZeHQ
Always a little thrill for the starved metal fan when that advert came on TV or at the cinema.
I mean, doesn't this show look about 11 billion times more fun than whatever the last stupid rock show you went to was? And this is them as old men.
My last stupid rock show was Magma (and if I hadn't been too tired, would've been Swans with lourdes kayak, so … no.
44, who's aged better than Iron Maiden?! King Diamond? Saxon? Manowar?
Look neb, I like Magma, but for any reasonable definition of "fun" a Maiden show is way more fun. Maiden-Fun!
Also wondering about the question raised 47. I assume Ttam means classic thrash.
Anthrax has aged very well. Also this.
Nah you're nuts. I was smiling all the way through MDK (which I know surprisingly well).
I have a deep belief that Wagner and Rachmaninoff scratch the metal itch.
Wagner and metal are both big with Nazis.
"Fifth Verse" by Mujician from Poem about the Hero moves pretty easily into Belle & Sebastian's "Sleep the Clock Around".
Shoot, TRO's clarification to 47 means I can't answer "the Melvins". But the answer is "the Melvins".
If I'm honest, looking back at high school I can say that I didn't listen to more metal because it scared me.
Totally on the TRO bandwagon here. Iron Maiden is great. it was hard to come to terms with the fact that the music I made fun of in high school is so much better than the music I loved, but at least this way I'm not Ogged.
This is a music thread, right? Boy, the SF Symphony's upcoming season is not exciting.
The Cal Performances season is way better.
I'm not Ogged
It's true, I would never betray the memories of Ray and Jim.
59: I would not have figured you for a Mummenschanz fan.
Is this the thread where I get to beg ttaM for long-ago-promised advice and resources on learning to play classical guitar? This year I'm seriously serious, unless it instantly causes wrist-nerve damage, as I fear it may. I even have a starter guitar.
I watched a bunch of old Maiden videos not long ago. I agree that they don't age well, but it's all relative, and I'm still inordinately fond of "Aces High" (and "The Trooper").
"The Trooper" does have a pretty killer riff.
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Soul Cat A fast-talkin', hard-biting alley cat takes on corruption and police brutality in 1970s San Francisco.
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As a general rule, it's striking how much better the chamber music programming is around here than the symphony's. I figure there must be economic reasons, but I have no idea if it's like this in other towns.
Oh, yeah, that's certainly true. And in fact the program at the SFS that I've most enjoyed this season was the one that most approximated chamber music (for its first half—very reduced forces). Though last year the most-enjoyed concert was a Mahler symphony that was overpoweringly awesome.
I can't really compare with Chicago since I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to either the symphony or the chamber music scene there though again the most memorable concerts I attended at the CSO didn't actually feature the entire orchestra.
My five year old is a big ACDC fan. In the car he often requests "The song after thunderstruck" because he can't remember the title (shook me all night long). I remember listening to that song at summer camp when I was 10.
My favorite AC/DC song was "Money Talks" when I was 10, and it's still "Money talks".
My gripe with AC/DC is that every song uses the same goddamn drum beat, and "Moneytalks" is no exception.
I like to joke that the drummer is always showing up with this new, amazing beat, and then Angus is like, "What if you did the kick drum on 1 and 3, and the snare on 2 and 4, with a steady hi-hat behind it?"
And the drummer's like, "Oh. Again. Okay."
AC/DC's not even in the same universe as IM in terms of awesomeness, but I admire their "Do one thing. Do it well" philosophy.
"Big balls" is one of the finest moments of our culture.
3.5-year-old was singing what seemed like the theme song to a kids' show in the bathtub, but it went something vaguely like "Everybody's here now, and/ We're all going to suffer!" I was not able to explain the intensity of my laughter.
nosflow, I told lourdes that if you were that tired you could come and sleep on our futon as a "babysitter" while I went to the Swans show, but this did not really fly. I can't complain; we've seen a bunch of stuff and will see a bunch more stuff lately, like Christian Tetzlaff for Mother's Day, which probably beats French toast and mimosas.
I don't remember what my favorite AC/DC song was when I was a kid. Wasn't really into learning about music then.
D'ye ever get the feeling that Ozzy Osbourne is some kind of performance art piece gone horribly awry? Like some brilliant young scholar at Black Mountain got really lit on datura or amanitas or something the night before a Happening, left the college, bummed around New York and the Interzone and London for awhile, crept into the northern wastes to emerge as Ozzy?
Boy, the SF Symphony's upcoming season is not exciting.
The BSO actually has many things I want to see next season. The first Berg in a couple of years, Bartók, Henze. Concert performance of Elektra! They're also playing Dutilleux on several programs; I wonder what that's about.
"We" just eyeballed the BSO program and are envious. Also, jeez, Dutilleux lived a long time.
I do want to see Maria João Pires when she plays with SFS next season, though.
Music is overrated in general. Not sure about chamber music specifically.
79: Finally, a comment I can relate to.
Hey you know which American symphony orchestra programs the most modernist stuff THAT'S RIGHT LOSERS.
You're such a bore bragging about L.A. yet again, TRO.
Just making lighthearted fun of you. But, in your particular case, hopefully insulting you personally.
Also! The Brötz/Nilssen-Love duo at the C4NM was standing room only.
Well, no, and 83-second-half was kind of bizarre.
To be annoyingly explicit, then, DQ likes to passively-aggressively swipe at me for some reason in her particular, inimitably annoying style, and to do so consistently. So I swipe back, though 83 last was not meant to be taken seriously.
You do know that neither of the LKs is dq, though, right? Even though all three reside in the same half of the state?
it's striking how much better the chamber music programming is around here than the symphony's. I figure there must be economic reasons
Totes. Unless you have someone like Salonen creating a fan base for bold programming and an audience with the money to back it up (TRO is entitled to his provincial pride here), bigger organizations tend to be more conservative. If you end up with lots of Dutilleux, though, you might wish you'd stuck with the classics.
I mean, to be clear, my failure. Sorry! This is boring, as well as now excessively cryptic.
On the contrary, now it finally makes some sense.
Obviously the only fitting response to TRO I can give is "wait, you're not text?" But I was just riffing, although per 92 I thought it was irresistibly appropriate.
How do you KNOW that I'm NOT text? What if we're all text? What if text is not a person, but a virus, that you can catch just by reading the blog?
Anyhow, fuck this, I'm going to go have a drink. UP THE IRONS.
96 would make a lot of things make a lot more sense.
In some sense we are all text, for certain values of "text."
text would almost certainly have been a happier and more successful entity if 96 were true.
completely agree with all the various assessments of SFS programming, both its boringness and the causes thereof - actually would add that MTT is just basically terminally wet so that certainly doesn't help and the acoustics in that hall are atrociously inconsistent so any ticket buy is a complete crapshoot. Also do not follow LA Philharmonic programming but would be completely unsurprised if El Dudeness is managing to swing more adventurous programming, to which I say fabulous! Long may it continue and flourish! We pretty much stick to chamber music but honestly that is mostly because its what the better half prefers and he does 99.999% of the scheduling.
I am fairly certain I piss you off TRO in the odd moments when you forget that actually you have a complete and admirably healthy disregard for me and anything I write here, which is whatever neither here nor there, right, I mean does either of us really care? in honesty, nope. BUT I sincerely commend to you Vilde Frang playing Sibelius' violin concerto as being the essence of metal. Get it, put it on LOUD in your car as you tool about LA and it would be odd to me if you did not agree. Besides, such a name! VILDE FRANG. Metal Goddess.
Oh, and -- I idiotically misread TRO's comment 81 as just making fun of all us pussies debating the merits of different symphony orchestras instead of Maiden. But he was serious! But I thought I had detected an unintended bit of irony! What the f. Sorry. I would drink too but have to catch the early train tomorrow.
I was primed for the misreading by the philistinism just before it, note. Still. For the record I love L.A. and just somewhat randomly read Architecture of the Four Ecologies, which contains this immortal opinion of Disneyland: "In terms of an experience one can walk or ride through, inhabit and enjoy, it is done with such consummate skill and such base cunning that one can only compare it to something completely outrageous, like the brothel in Genet's Le Balcon."
... which I humbly submit as new mouseover text.
No, I was also making fun of you pussies for talking about symphony orchestras instead of Maiden. Yet was also serious about getting in the one fact I know about symphony orchestras in the most aggressive possible way. And am confused, but one of my most important life rules is that if you let confusion stand in the way of belligerence then you are weak and have failed. And now I have poured a tasty drink and have the warrior spirit of metal at my back, so, fuck it, come at me, I'll take everyone in this joint. UP THE IRONS!! Nonetheless, I will listen to Vilde Frang as soon as I'm in a position to rock out.
SFS looks bleak next season. The cult of MTT is annoying also.
+1 on can't name an Iron Maiden song. +1 on don't care.
I would drink too but have to catch the early train tomorrow.
Lame. I have to catch a 6 am flight tomorrow, yet here I am drinking Alaskan Amber.
Next time on Unfogged, TRO and Smearcase reënact the fun/fine episode from the dread third season of Moonlighting.
Why did I just spontaneously wake up at 2 AM for the fourth time in the last week, and does it have anything to do with why nothing going on in this thread makes any sense to me?
I have to catch a 6 am flight tomorrow
I'm glad that teo is becoming the new me, because I want to cut back sharply on plane travel.
To be fair, my flights are very different from yours in many ways.
nothing going on in this thread makes any sense to me
Don't worry about that. Just get in the mix and fight. As Iron Maiden sings, if you're going to die, die with your boots on.
Or:
No point asking when it is,
No point asking who's to go,
No point asking what's the game,
No point asking who's to blame,
...
If you're gonna die, die with your boots on,
If you're gonna try, well stick around,
Gonna cry, just move along,
If you're gonna die, you're gonna die.
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Did we just have a commenter name-checked in the Science Tiimes (re dark matter and dinosaurs)? (I have forgotten exactly how googleproofy to be about this, but I have a vague feeling that quite careful is the right answer.)
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If you like Maiden, try Bolt Thrower. The riffs don't stop!
114: Lumped in with some NYU professor whose idea doesn't make any sense.
116: Ain't that the goddamned truth? These fuckin' college professors think they're so smart, but give 'em a vise-grips, a case of High Life and a busted lawn mower and 6 hours later they'd still be standing around talkin' about Descartes or somethin' with most of the beer undrank.
You don't see much High Life in bars around here.
My son really likes that "Light 'em Up" song. I don't mind it, but the lyric "My songs know what you did in the dark" always annoys me.
118: The lawnmower mechanics have cornered the supply.
According to an NYU professor, they're also responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Also, you weren't kidding about having to get up early.
I love Architecture of the Four Ecologies
No, in honor of the concept of metal, two just pounded beers and stayed up all night.
High Life was what I drank, alone, in Jimmy's after Regenstein closed.
I would claim to be the least metal person at Unfogged, but I'm sure there's some stiff competition for that title.
Anyway, I have a "window" seat but there's not actually a window in this row.
I think everything in 205 made me smile.
BTW, I'd also back the symphony/chamber split. Our symphony is very good, but plays extremely conservative programs (they do try to slip in modern stuff, and the themes can be clever, but it's mostly stuff a dilettante would know), whereas we have a couple/few chamber-ey groups, all of which do variously interesting things. I doubt any of them are truly cutting edge (I wouldn't know), but even the primary, presumptively most conservative, one commissions new, modern pieces. We subscribed until we had kids.
There was a town near where I grew up that was called Chambers. I didn't allow churches or bars. This has nothing to do with anything.
"I" should be "It". I don't have that kind of power of a town, plus I frequent both churches and bars.
Dark matter and oncology? We could form the first unfogged scientific collaboration. Please send me some dark matter for testing, I can send you our standard containers for shipment depending on how many grams you have available in your freezer.
We ship stuff packed with dry ice. That would probably work.
I bet the dinosaurs died of dark matter cancer.
I also don't care about metal or classical music whatsoever.
134: Our symphony is very good for dilettantes, myself included. They're slightly more progressive with playing the pops; a few summers ago they were on the concert tour of Zelda video game music, which was nice.
I'm completely ignorant of the chamber music scene; anything you'd recommend?
Die Antwoord is coming to Stage AE. That's probably close enough.
BTW how was people's record store day? My best moment was spotting a used Manitas de Plata box set, seemingly never played, for 599, having the better half and stepdaughter both go "oooo oooo ooo!" in chorus and then bestowing it on stepdaughter. We have more than enough records already. Also, better half snagged a Bollywood Disco compilation to warm up the kid who's taking a summer course that includes 1.5 hours per day of Bollywood dance. 10 pm on a night soon I am going to regret this purchase!
Made it to Fairbanks. These are not long flights.
It's probably not a very big state.
how was people's record store day?
It was fun. My band played inside a tiny local record store, and then I ate some tacos.
We ate tamales & were serenaded by child labor accordion. Then it seems every single fucking mosquito in Tucson feasted on M flesh through the long night.
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Just settled a crawling horror of a case that has been haunting me for two full years of unpleasantness. Opposing counsel has been nightmarish to deal with, mostly through refusing to be contactable as deadlines approached. The damn case felt like a bad relationship -- "Dear Diary -- why doesn't he ever call me? I keep on leaving messages, but I feel like I'm just making myself look cheap."
But we have a handshake deal, and I can get the horrible, horrible file out of my office. I literally had to restrain myself from doing the happy settlement dance in my boss's office (no one wants to see the happy settlement dance. I have been reliably informed that I dance like the gopher from CaddyShack.).
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Connecting flight boards in about five minutes.
I'm pretty sure everyone wants to see the happy settlement dance.
That sounds like a hora set to Hava Nagila.
Congrats LB! got a reversal last week that was super sweet, those ones always make excellent reading.
As a late entry to the least metal person on Unfogged competition, I was wondering if anyone else was listening to Shadows in the Night. I've been surprised to find myself loving it.
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Hah -- and my premotion letter on a change of venue motion in a different case was compelling enough that the judge talked opposing counsel into stipulating to transfer rather than making me brief it. Change of venue meaning to a district far enough away that it's no longer my problem. Again, happy dance!
(These two matters, together, with the other things that were on my plate, were going to make the remainder of the spring somewhere between awful and impossible, depending on what else hit. With them cleared up, I'll still be working pretty hard, but it'll be very doable.)
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148 -- I think I have that guy on a case. And we're settling too!
140.last: Well, it's been 10 years since I've been involved, but the Pgh Chamber Mus/c Soc/ety at least did a great job of playing some of everything, and hopefully still do. Chatham B/roque and the Rena/ssance and B/roque groups are more varied than their names suggest, and do a lot of stuff in interesting venues, cross-promoted with other events, etc.
BTW, google-proofing because my MIL is very friendly with members of the latter groups (in fact the principal violinist of one has been in my house), and why not be discrete?
re: 62
What kind of level are you currently at? So I know where to pitch it. And can you read music?
If you are prone to wrist pain, best _not_ to take the old Segovian model of technique. Modern guitar pedagogy stresses more natural hand positions, and less strain.
I've not looked at it, but for a real beginner, Stanley Yates method might be a good one as he's fairly progressive, technique-wise.
If you aren't a total beginner, I can definitely recommend some good technique books, collections of etudes, and some sites where you can find repertoire.
I can play electric guitar, not like Eddie Van Halen but comfortably with boring stuff and blues solos and so on. Have never played classical. I did sign up for an online video course for total beginners called Classical Guitar Corner (?)which seems reasonable as video courses go. The guy has a video of himself performing Armand Coeck's Constellations, which was super cool. No links from phone, sorry. Email included here if you prefer.
I just remembered that this morning in the pre-sentient hours, I listened to some of Vilde Frang (this name seems like a character in a novel to me) playing the Sibelius and liked it but maybe less than certain other recordings, and then I found five Vilda Frangs.
What's the exchange rate between a Vilde Frang and a Swiss Franc?
158 and why not be discrete?
Yet you can't escape continuity.
Just listened to the Vilde Frang, I liked it but I give it maybe 3.5/5 burning skulls. I didn't know the piece so maybe it was Sibelius and not Vilde that wasn't fully ricking it for me. Now to complete the thread as I sit totally immobilized in traffic I'm listening to Magma, which is indees awesome, at least 4/5 burning skulls. If they hadn't made up that language though I don't think they'd have their reputation as the ultimate weirdos. Honestly there are a bunch of passages where they sound like the Allman Brothers (not that this a bad thing).
re: 160
That's basically where I was, when I started playing classical about 10 years ago. I took lessons for a year, but, if I'm honest, the lessons didn't give me that much except for an incentive to practice.
Given that you aren't a beginner, I'd get hold of Scott Tennant's Pumping Nylon, plus a book of classical guitar etudes,* and then look at some graded repertoire.
So, in the UK, there are various classical guitar exams, that start at grade 1, standardly go through to 8 [normally the level required to get into music school].* Those are a pretty good guide to the difficulty of pieces. So you can work on technique with the Tennant book and the etudes, and learn pieces at an appropriate level.
If you're already a player, I'd start with UK grade 3 or 4 type pieces, probably. Anything lower might be too easy.
http://us.abrsm.org/fileadmin/user_upload/syllabuses/guitarSyllabusComplete15.pdf
http://www.trinitycollege.com/resource/?id=5927
Then you can grab the music itself, if it's not too modern, by searching online. The Birkett-Smith (at the KB in Denmark), and Boijes (in Sweden) archives are online and contain a huge amount of the pre 20th repertoire.
https://aleph.kb.dk/F/-?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=mus01_rbs&con_lng=ENG
http://musikverket.se/musikochteaterbiblioteket/ladda-ner-noter/boijes-samling/?lang=en
* this one is good, and you may be able to grab it via Scribd. At:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/211912740/Definitive-Edition-the-Guitar-Etudes-Ed-Kazutaka-Ogawa#scribd
** there are higher levels, 8's just where most school players end up, I think. I only did up to 7, because doing 8 required also doing a music theory qualification.
Thank you so much! I get the impression you were a little closer to the van halen level than i am, but this is all helpful. Now for all the logistics-of-practicing stuff, which as I'm sure you know is not so easy with working families. But not, I hope, actually impossible.
Looking at the grade 7 and 8 pieces, and the technique sections in those syllabuses, they are harder than I remember.
What kind of stuff do you like?
Dowland?
Bach, and Weiss?
early 19th c. stuff like Sor, Aguado, and Guiliani?
mid 19th c. stuff like Mertz,* or Regondi?**
20th c.?
I might be able to link to sheet music online.
* lots of pieces, some very accessible, some bloody hard.
Something like this is easier than it sounds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8YQxMLXbQ0
I used to play this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksmgJlpm7ro
which is lovely. When it gets past the flashy intro, the melody against the chordal part is lovely to play. [from about 1 min 30]
** very very hard, even the pieces that sound quite simple are evil.
Something like this is lovely [seriously, watch this all]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD0g_cfyJlk
but really really hard to play.
re: 167
Nah. When I was a teenager I was a decent enough rock/metal guitar player gigging at the local pub level, nothing more. When I started trying to learn classical, I hadn't been practicing much for years, so my technique had atrophied a fair bit, although my taste had broadened, so I could play a wider range of stuff, just not as fast.
I'd probably struggle with grade 6 or 7 level pieces now, tbh, if i had to get examined. I haven't played much classical in a while.
I don't go to RSD, solely because my bad back makes standing in lines unpossible. I did buy a bunch of CDs at one of the old stalwart record stores over the past month though (they had TMBG in for RSD) so I felt supportive.
So, we're going to go see Neko Case tonight. Someone has to be the oldest person there.
I was going to see a show tonight -- avant garde theatre rather than rock and roll -- but then it was snowing. But then it got nice. But I'm still not going. I have like four productions I MUST see this week.
You can just say you went and look up the plot on Wikipedia.
Sadly, your cunning plan will not avail, as the whole point of going to these shows is to make an appearance and show the flag and what not for my friends who are producing/performing them.
Just say you arrived late, sat in the back, and had to leave early. Or, just don't befriend actors and producers.
Just get E Messily to build you a lifelike stand-in doll.
158.last: I'm proposing a meetup at one of the concerts. We are very good friends with a member of one of them. I like the concept of two simultaneous mutually invisible social engagements. We can use discreetly palmed gumballs with Mutombo's likeness on them as identifiers.
NMM to the MWMF!
Take that, TERFs!
Ding dong the wicked Mich is dead!
Back in Fairbanks. Return flight to Anchorage takes off in an hour.
Fly safe
Is teo piloting the plane? Because if not there's not much he can do besides wear his seat belt and maybe help the pilot break back into the cockpit if he's been locked out.
168: I'm just going to copy/paste all that into a text file and come back to it when the material-gathering phase begins, as opposed to the "try to hold the guitar properly" phase. I may also email you.
I remember that Gabriel Bianco/Regondi video the last time you linked it -- it is indeed both lovely and sadistic, which was a combination favored by composers since the age of... the Marquis de Sade, I guess? I keep meaning to learn more about 19th century music, even unto having a ridiculously-colored book entitled Nineteenth Century Music. It's always the stuff for which I have the least native understanding or sympathy, but its importance cannot be overstated etc. etc.
3.5/5 burning skulls
TRO may already know, but I didn't until the other day, that the whole Vikings-drinking-from-skulls thing was an epic (in two senses) mistranslation by a seventeenth-century Dane named, wait for it, Ole Worm:
The detail of drinking from skulls made an especial appeal, and for a long time few writers could mention a viking without telling the strange fashion of his drinking. It is in Sammes's Antiquities of Britain (1676), Horace Walpole and Southey prate of it, Percy has it in the Dying Ode of Ragnar, and Matthew Arnold in Balder Dead. The originator of the absurdity was Óláfsson (in Worm's book) who mistranslated the lines of Krákumál
Drekkum bjór at bragði
ór bjúgviðum hausa;
sýtira drengr við dauða
dýrs at Fjǫlnis húsumas Sperabant heroes se in aula Othini bibituros ex craniis eorum quos ceciderunt. But ór bjúgviðum hausa properly means 'from curved branches of skulls', a kenning for drinking-horns.
--E.V. Gordon (pal of Tolkien), An Introduction to Old Norse
184: There are also plenty of ways I can make the flight unsafe, so I can refrain from them and thereby make the flight safe.
Neko's great. And, Natilo, appearing in St. Paul later this week. The really pleasant surprise was opening act Rodrigo Amarante.
re: 185
Just by way of illustrating that you can get the music from those archives, here's the Regondi:
http://wayback-01.kb.dk/wayback/20101028110259/http://www2.kb.dk/elib/noder/rischel/RiBS0643.pdf
I notice the quality is higher on the Boije version.
And if you want something accessible, and relatively easy, here's the first part of Sor's Op. 31 etdues:
Some of those should be quite accessible for a beginner. The first two are the first two classical pieces I learned.
Thanks. I was not really kidding when I said I was stuck on proper position, though. I can't get the right side of the guitar and my right arm to get along. I feel like I should maybe pay for one in-person lesson that is effectively an ergonomics consultation.
There has to be at least one lurker getting some kind of value from this subthread. I must believe.
re: right hand position. A teacher would probably be good, although some teachers will still push the traditional Segovia/Tarrega approach
The classic 'Spanish' position, as promulgated by most guitar teachers in the first 50 pr 60 years or so after Segovia, has the right hand perpendicular to the strings, with the wrist very arched, and the fingers and thumb forming an X.
Some people find that OK, but a lot of people find it very uncomfortable and hard on the wrist, although it does make a certain type of rest-stroke heavy playing a bit easier, I suppose.
A lot of younger players, or players educated in the Latin American tradition, have a much flatter more natural wrist position.
http://www.latinguitarmastery.com/right-hand-classical-guitar-technique/
Compare and contrast Williams and Barrueco in those images.
If you look at Bianco, his hand is much more natural and less dramatically arched or turned sideways.
Tennant's book [Pumping Nylong] is quite a good basic technique overview, aimed at a wide range of technical abilities.
I should have commented yesterday when the music thread was still active, but I'm curious if anybody has opinions about the new Rihanna* video, "American Oxygen."
The video is almost absurdly shameless (or grandiose) in its willingness to use every high-impact image it can think of (the Beatles, Martin Luther King, Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson), the song wouldn't have a clear message or any real impact without the video and the combination mostly works for me.
It feels heavy handed, but it's also interesting to watch. There are moments when it's very emotionally affecting, and I don't particularly hold it's flaws against it. On the third hand, I don't know that I'd want to buy the song (or video), but I'm happy to have it show up as part of the pop culture landscape.
* I have paid almost no attention to Rihanna, but I did like "FourFiveSeconds" quite a bit, and it made me curious to see what else she would do.
Rihanna's best is Pon de Replay and it has all gone downhill from there.
Rihanna's best is Pon de Replay and it has all gone downhill from there.
That's been bugging me slightly all afternoon, and I think I figured out why. Though I'm going to use an analogy to explain, it's a dead thread I figure I'm not that likely to be banned.
It's like saying, "Tom Cruise's best movie was Risky Business, and it has all gone downhill from there. That might be true but it's also the case that Tom Cruise is a fascinating (and only slightly bizarre) cultural figure in a way that he wouldn't be if he had just stuck to the strengths that he showed in Risky Business. To say only that that everything since then is "all downhill" is to implicitly deny that there's any reason to want to talk about him as a cultural figure.
Since I'd specifically asked about Rihanna as a part of the pop culture it seems rude to give an answer which is, essentially, "not worth talking about." (though, heck, you're the only person who replied so I shouldn't complain too much).
Beyond that, I do think, "FourFiveSeconds" is so much more ambitious than "Pon de Replay" that it's worth evaluating even if you ultimately don't like it as well.
Besides, you follow the NBA at least occasionally, the re-done video which splices in footage of Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant is very well done.
I liked Vanilla Sky a lot, more than risky business.
Li Saumet over Rihanna every day of the week.
I haven't watched the new Rihanna video or really any of the old ones, but her ubiquity on games like Just Dance means I've heard more of her than I would otherwise and I prefer her to a lot of the other pop singers of her (our?) generation. Nia's signature song now is "shine bright like a diamond," which I think is called Diamonds and isn't all that great. Mara can do an uncanny rendition of the Umbrella dance but prefers Disturbia, as do I.
But if we're analyzing videos, do we have thoughts on Janelle Monae's new Yoga?
But if we're analyzing videos, do we have thoughts on Janelle Monae's new Yoga?
I wasn't sure what to make of the Tina Turner reference. But mostly I was just surprised at how straight-ahead sexy it was (and not only because I've always assumed Janello Monae is queer).
You do have to respect a song that has the line, "You cannot police me, so get off my areola." But, still, I find it odd.
My little kid these days regularly asks me to play Ja-el Mo-ay. That's right, we don't let them use the "n letter." (I don't think she's queer, by the way, if by queer you mean a lesbian.) I enjoy some of her songs, but if I had only listened to her songs, without being familiar with her style/persona, I'm not sure I'd be as impressed.
200.2: yogilates studio full of sexy happy women made perfect sense. I didn't get much from the guy in the diner whose collar didn't fit.
