all your taste is in your mouth

The Christmas CDs — guilty pleasure or not so much?

Now that we’ve all had a chance to listen to the latest set of Christmas CDs, why don’t we share our opinions on each disk? I was thinking, from each disk, we could pick the least guilty (”hey, I really like that song — you shouldn’t feel guilty about liking it”), the most guilty (”I just can’t listen to that one — sorry”), and maybe one other observation, like, on Carl’s CD, the version of that Bread song is not the one we all know and remember — maybe it’s a victim of the long feud between David Gates and James Griffin. I’ll post my comments on Friday or Saturday — I encourage/challenge you all to do the same.

Todd update

When I’m sleeping in on a Sunday morning, I usually try to see who is performing on Private Sessions on A&E. This past Sunday, Hall and Oates were on, and they mentioned this website where folks come to Daryl Hall’s house for a bit of drink, a bit of food and some music. Now, I know Daryl’s not the most popular guy, but the premise seems pretty good, and he’s had some great folks on, including, last month, Mr. Rundgren. They made their own sausages from scratch, they drank martinis, and they played some excellent music (it’s most of the Hall and Oates band, except for Oates). They did a bunch of Todd stuff, including Can We Still Be Friends, which I’ve never actually seen him perform in all the shows we’ve seen, one Hall and Oates song, and a couple of soul classics — Expressway of Your Heart and the Average White Band’s You Got It. He’s also done a session with Nick Lowe, which I haven’t checked out yet. The website is www.livefromdarylshouse.com — give it a once over.

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Are We the World?

Obviously, I have been spending quite a bit of time outside the homeland.  But even before this, I tried to expose myself to music you don’t hear normally – in particular “world music”.  My guess is it is referred to as “world music” because it doesn’t generate from an English speaking country.  However, most countries DO speak English and everyone from Britney to Creed to Bon Jovi sells in every part of the world.

 But “world music” doesn’t sell here.   Granted, I don’t listen to the type of music that sells by the bushel in India or France or Japan.  Most of that is pop music of the ilk I can’t stand – even in my native tongue.  However, there are some amazing discs out there in foreign languages.   Sa Dingding’s “Alive” is a beautiful record sung in five different languages and French singer Anaïs recent album “Love Story” is a really fine piece of pop. Dervish is an Irish band who sings strictly in Gaelic.  I’ve even heard guys rap in Turkish, Arabic and French and it sounds great.   And we hear “world music” everyday!  If you’ve been to Cirque de Soleil you’ve heard it.  If you’ve listened to a soundtrack – say…

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Hell freezes over … again

Is this one of the signs of the apocalypse? First, hell freezes over and now this. I think I always knew Don Henley was a greedy bastard — this confirms it. Needless to say, I will not be attending this conference.

STEVEN LEVITT DELIVERS KEYNOTE AND DON HENLEY PERFORMS Together, SAPPHIRE and the ASUG Annual Conference provide unparalleled business-critical learning opportunities because they combine current, real-world customer experiential education with visionary insight into future SAP application offerings and business strategies.

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What Is It Called?

Here we are – 2009.  Another decade has nearly past.

So – where’s the music?

We just did CDs based on five decades of music.  Each of those decades had a sound that branded it – sometimes more than one.  Almost all of these forms sprang from the Youth of the day.  Some were in protest of the way things were.  Others were protesting the protests.  But all the forms were propelled by the “under 30” crowd.  Created by and for, bought and sold to the young.

The 1960s, of course, basically created music as we know it.  The Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan and the Stones were basically genres themselves.  Rock (as opposed to rock ‘n roll) and Pop became the terms and offered numerous branches that still thrive today.

The 1970s gave us Glam Rock and Hard Rock (per Led Zepplin and others) and Prog Rock (or Art Rock).  There was the Singer/Songwriter genre and Bubblegum.  Then Disco and Punk toward the end of the decade – each the antithesis of the other.

The 1980s showed Punk move to New Wave.  Corporate Rock (Toto, Foreigner) and Hair Bands were products of MTV and a rebellion against punk and new wave.  The end of the…

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day

One of my favorite Irish tunes…also known as the Humors of Whiskey:

So stick to the cratur’ the best thing in nature
For sinking your sorrows and raising your joys
Oh what moderation gives hope to a nation
Or brings consolation like poteen me boys.

Full lyrics here:

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