Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts

Sunday, March 10, 2013

SXSW is here again - and, no, I am not going, again

I've never paid for a SXSW badge.  The only SXSW badges I ever got were through work for (a) the relatively new SXSW Interactive around 2000 and (b) about three years ago I returned to Interactive.  I've never paid for film or for music.

I've never been to a SXSW screening of a movie, and the few times I saw music at SXSW, it was near accidental and incidental.  It's probably safe to say that I'm not particularly interested in the scene, and the idea of dealing with the crowds, the lines, and sheer volume of people at all of these events has been off-putting enough that whatever appeal there might be to seeing bands or movies is significantly reduced when I weigh the cost factor of dealing with the scene around SXSW.

For those of us in town, SXSW is an annual period where we sort of just avoid downtown between certain blocks and as locals who feel the presence of the tide, we know to brace ourselves for:


  • The bizarre take on Austin that journalists mistake for Austin but which is really just the bubble of SXSW (East Sixth is not "no-man's land".  It's a few hundred feet from regular Sixth.  By the way, no one really goes to Sixth anymore but tourists)
  • The number of people who, based on the drunken revelry to be had during SXSW, associate those good times with a need to move here - and they do
  • The handwaving that SXSW isn't, basically, spring break for three industries and that this is somehow work 
  • People who are the True Believers in SXSW seeming shocked and indignant (and often demanding answers) when you say you don't want to spend the money or time

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Whatever Happened to The Girl in the Stop Sign Shorts?



On Wednesday night I posted a comment to facebook about how we don't spend enough time celebrating the dancer in the trademark "Stop Sign" shorts from the Young MC video for "Bust a Move".  I was about 14 when this song was big, and I knew enough then to know that the bassist in the video was Flea from the California-based Red Hot Chili Peppers (who might be a thing one day).

The video is below. You can find the dancer in question around the 1:05 mark.



Well, in 1989-ish, you couldn't not hear this song, and from 1989 until the end of time, you couldn't not like the song.  It's a staple of Gen X music consumption that was sort of universally beloved, kind of like the work of Tone Loc (also written by Young MC) and "The Humpty Dance" by Digital Underground.

It was a different time.

Lets just say that the performer left an impression, enough so that in 2013, if you say "Stop Sign Shorts", I know exactly what you're talking about.

But who was the woman behind the shorts?  (so to speak)

Turns out her name is Cindyana Santangelo.  This is some minor league Google search wizardry, and you can thank me later.

What I didn't know is that she's also the voice from the beginning of the 1990 Jane's Addiction album, Ritual de lo Habitual.  And if you were a sulky kid in 1990, chances are, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Just watch the first part of the video and it'll come back to you here 23 years on.




Well, I assure you that video seemed relevant at the time.

LA must have been a bit smaller of a town than I realized back then, what with all the Jane's Addiction/ Chili Peppers/ Young MC cross-pollination going on.  Oddly, I feel less awkward watching a Young MC video today than I do remembering being really, really into Jane's Addiction from about 1989-1993.

I'm shocked to learn that the two were so close together as, in my mind, they seem incredibly separated, but I'd moved and made the passage to being a bit older and more sullen by the time I was anticipating new Jane's Addiction albums, I guess.  But, dang, we all still loved Young MC!  Everyone find a way to send Young MC a dollar on paypal.

Anyway, point is:  After imprinting herself heavily upon my malleable 14 year old psyche, I now know who this person is (Cindyana Santangelo!) and a wee bit about her. Because she's got a website.  She's an actress!

Look here.

She's apparently been on CSI and appeared on a reality show as a client on Million Dollar Listing and was on a show that didn't get picked up about Housewives of Malibu.

She also appears to run something called "Mermaid Cove Sober Living" in Malibu.

So, wherever you are Cindyana, we salute you.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Happy Birthday, KareBear

Today is my mother's birthday.

In her honor, here is Neil Diamond singing "America".  I welcome you to clap along slightly off beat with the song, knowing that, wherever she is, The KareBear will be doing the same.



and, because, it's her b-day, let us all enjoy the 1973 Hawaii performance of "Suspicious Minds" by King Elvis.



Dang, yo. There is nobody else like The King, is there?

Happy birthday, Ma!  We love you.

Sunday, March 3, 2013

For Pope Benedict as he departs office

Apparently, in 2005, I welcomed Pope Benedict XVI to the job with this post...

So, so much has changed since 2005.

We lost Jackson, YouTube became a thing you could embed....

As Pope Ben leaves office, let's hear it one more time...



That's right, I've been blogging longer than a Pope's tenure in office.

Monday, February 18, 2013

On behalf of all tall people, if you don't like standing behind us at concerts: tough luck

I saw this comic strip thing today, and it's actually very good.  It's about the annoying things people do at concerts (ie: why I quit paying money to go to shows in my late 30's).

I'd point to number 5, "The Sun Blocking Giant" and I thought I'd clear something up.

The world was built for smaller people.  Most of you are those smaller people, and I appreciate that most of you attend shows and expect to basically be within a certain height range.  I know you think that there's some great advantage to being a bit taller, but in a world that mostly relies on your ability to be a jerk in a board room or your ability to manage java code to get ahead, being bred for being the lynchpin in a goon squad of some barbarian hoard doesn't really pay off so much.

I was 6'3" by the ninth grade, and somehow put on two more inches by the end of my freshman year of college.  I didn't measure myself in between.  Tall people don't really know nor really care about how tall they are.

Since I was a kid, I also like(d) live music and attending shows.  I live in Austin.  It's sort of a thing here.

The average bar in Austin that would host a show (let's say, Liberty Lunch or La Zona Rosa) had three zones:

1.  The area right by the stage with the cow-eyed fans pressing up against the stage because that made them bigger fans and let them sing the lyrics right back at the singer's face.

2.  The mid-range where most everyone else stood with elbow room enough to hold a beer and still lift it to their face without putting out someone else's eye.

3.  The place in the back where, for reasons that baffled me, people would huddle and shout over the music, like it was a huge inconvenience that there were all these speakers blaring music when they'd come out to this music venue for a quiet night of conversation.  Also, they're usually trashed.

The cartoon bemoans:

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Taking the Night Off - The League is Your Valentine's Evening Co-Pilot

It's Valentine's Day. I had a hell of a day, and I'm not social media-ing at all tonight.

That doesn't mean I can't provide all you good people with the finest in Valentine's Day music, sure to brew up some romance.

Ladies and gentleman, the Reverend Al Green.



Mr Stevie Wonder



Ms. Minnie Riperton



and the killer app of romantic musicians:  Sade





and, more Sade


Thursday, February 7, 2013

Here's a Random Thing I Did: Glenn Miller Orchestra in Austin

Lately a coffeehouse not so far from my house expanded into the next retail space over and opened the Strange Brew Lounge.  Jason pointed out the new venue to me, and a few weeks back I was driving to work and noticed they claimed they had the Glenn Miller Orchestra coming.

You might find yourself saying: "But, The League, Glenn Miller died in 1944!"
Indeed he did.

and thus, I payed to see an empty stage


But the orchestra played on!

The Glenn Miller Orchestra still plays around the country, with an all new line-up that probably refreshes quite frequently as they're on the road 48 weeks per year.

My pal Julia said she was interested, so we got us a pair of tickets, and we attended the 6:00 PM show.  (Seriously, they started promptly at 6:00.  It was crazy town.).

The venue is pretty great.  It's really intended for the singer/ songwriter scene Austin cultivates, but apparently the uncle of the owners of Strange Brew was once did arrangements for the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and so they decided to take a risk and book the band.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown

author's note:  2012 is a year I have been looking to put behind me for quite a while for any number of reasons.  Obviously the events in my personal life marked a very sad end to the year for us at our house.  Perhaps we should declare 2012 Annus Horribilis and move on.

With recent events weighing so heavily on me right now (and with this post started a long, long time ago), I'm going to stick to pop culture and the original, intended tone of the post - and this blog - and take a look back instead at...  yeah, I guess comics and whatnot.

here we go.


The 2012 Not-a-List Rundown




My Totem for Everything About my Pop Culture Hobbies in 2012

My relationship fundamentally changed with my hobbies and past-times, and superhero comics have begun to dip below the horizon to the same place Star Wars went circa 2002.  Because of travelling and the fact I was sick a lot this year, I also didn't really make it out to the movies very often.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween! "Frankenstein" and Edgar Winter!



If you finish listening to this all the way through, get yourself some Halloween candy as a reward.

Happy Halloween! Monster Mash!

You are now legally allowed to play this song until midnight, and then it needs to go back in the vault for another year.





Saturday, October 6, 2012

So, Friday Marshall and I went to see David Byrne and St. Vincent

It is not a secret that I am a fan of the work of musician/ artist David Byrne.  I think I've written before about becoming a Talking Heads fan, and I have a hard time believing that over the years I haven't mentioned that I have avidly followed Byrne's career since the band dissolved and continue to be a fan.

I missed Byrne when he came through and played ACL Fest about two years ago with Brian Eno, but I've seen Byrne play a few times over the years, and I have a couple of concerts on DVD.  The man puts on a good show (ie: we recommend).

However, I knew far less about St. Vincent other than that in 2009, when I posted on Amanda Palmer, Marshall suggested I check her out.  Unfortunately, when I attempted to learn more about St. Vincent, I accidentally bought an album by someone else who also goes by the name of St. Vincent, and I never circled back to buying the St. Vincent I intended to listen to in the first place.

Monday, October 1, 2012

Opera Watch: Götterdämmerung - We Wrap It Up with Opera #4

People, let me start at the end and the advice I have for you:

If you see some gold at the bottom of The Rhine, just leave it.

Okay.

more or less how Jamie sends me off to work on Mondays

We broke up the fourth and final of The Ring Cycle Operas up into three separate viewings, one per act, as the opera stretched over roughly five hours of TV time. Götterdämmerung (in Ingles, The Twilight of the Gods) catches us up with our hero, Siegfried and his beloved bride, the fallen Brünnhilde as they make pronouncements of eternal love to one another. What we know, that they did not see in the previous scene, was that The Norns (basically, The Fates) have foreseen the end of The Gods and bad times for everyone associated.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Opera Watch: Siegfried from the Met (2011)

Again, I know absolutely nothing about opera, Germans, Norse/ Germanic mythology, etc...

But we did make it through four hours of Siegfried, the third in the four opera cycle by our good friend Wagner.

And, boy howdy, does a lot happen in this thing.

Siegfried is the child of the lovers/ twin siblings (I KNOW) from Die Walküre, the preceding episode.   He has grown to manhood under the watchful eye of Mime, the brother of the Nibelung, Alberich, from Das Rheingold. Our hero is both preternaturally brave and oddly unworldly, having had grown up in the woods among bears and wolves.

Singing AND Dragon Slaying!

I'll leave it to you to Google the plot, but in this installment the use of the rotating arms of the set and integrated visuals reached a new level of sophistication, with interactive digital leaves, a singing, 3D bird and imaginative use of the shifting set.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Amanda Palmer at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas

Wednesday evening I hit Stubb's BBQ here in sunny Austin, Texas with Jason's finance, Amy, to see Amanda Palmer and The Grand Theft Orchestra.

Much has been made of Palmer in recent months as she released yet another album not just independent of any label, but by asking her fanbase for about $100,000 via Kickstarter and came up with $1.2 million.  As Palmer mounted her tour, her usual routine of recruiting local talent to help out in what's always a pretty raucous stage show, was met with a sudden and vociferous bit of controversy.  Apparently a lot of musicians who were in no way involved got mad that Palmer was asking for volunteers, and, anyway...  it got ugly.

Keep in mind, Palmer is far from the only artist who has folks sit in, includes local marching bands, choirs, whatever...  But because these were horn and string musicians, somehow it became a big deal.  Anyhow, it all ends happily with Palmer shuffling her budget, not doing a music video or something, and coughing up cash so people would get the @#$% over it.

I tend to think of rock and roll as having far less whining associated than what folks were tossing Palmer's way, and as many people I personally know (this is Austin) who play for free all the time, I couldn't really wrap my head around it.  It's a rock and roll show, and, no, you're not going to convince me otherwise when it comes to Palmer somehow undermining the payment of musicians when she's inviting collaboration with locals.  You psycho.

By the way, while you're getting mad at Amanda Palmer, you can download the new album for whatever you can or feel like paying.  Here you go.

Fast forward to today, and Palmer's album, Theater is Evil, has debuted on the Billboard top 200 at position #10.  Not bad for a record by an artist that has no TV coverage, no label support and has never had it's featured artist on American Idol.

You'll have to forgive me re: the pictures.  I was using my iPhone.  I'm a lousy photographer to begin with, and the stage lighting and the limitations of the iPhone's digital zoom capability were wreaking a bit of havoc. For fun, though, let's pretend this was all intentional and I'm just a really un-self-aware but hilariously lousy artist.


Sunday, September 16, 2012

Opera Watch: The Ring Cycle Parts 1 & 2

Again - I know absolutely nothing about opera.  Nothing.  I'm also not particularly up on my Germanic/ Norse mythology, my Wagner, or basically anything to do with what I've committed upwards of 18 hours to watching.  And, you know...  it's nice to try something outside of my 21st Century comfort zone, especially when I can do it from the comfort of my living room using the power of DVR, HD TV and state-of-the-art, semi-avante-garde (by opera standards) production.

Musically, the show is familiar in part because it's been endlessly repurposed over the 20th century for cartoons, movies, commercials and television.  Most famous is the "Ride of the Valkyries" theme from the second opera in the cycle, which everyone knows at least in part because of the helicopter scene in Coppola's Apocalypse, Now.  Hell, this cycle of operas provides the reason behind the common imagery of the zaftig broad in the viking helmet with a spear belting out the high notes.

@#$% is gettin' real in Valkyrie town

The production shown on PBS last week was not the one recommended to me a few months back.  That was the 1992 production, also recorded at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.  While the production made it to DVD and the sound quality is excellent, the video suffers from the limitations of the time and an insistence by the videographers to shoot the opera more or less from an audience member's distant vantage.  I can't comment on the vocal performances knowledgeably, but the actual acting performances in this version are noticeably stronger and assisted by the camera's ability to get in much closer.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Gotter DAMN erung! We're taking a break from blogging.

Y'all, I'm kind of not going to be posting this week.

WHY?

Because Wagner's The Ring Cycle is going to be playing every night this week on PBS.

For some reason this opera keeps crossing my path of late, and I think it's all leading to something, man.

So I am going to take a break from blogging and I am going to get cultured.

Deborah Voigt in the role of Brünnhilde
Hey.  So.  Why not join in?  It's on all week!  It might be a nice break from the usual stuff on TV.

It's got mermaids and trolls and gods and valkyries and dragons and all kinds of crazy stuff.  It's the basis for half the fantasy, comics, sci-fi and bigger-than-life entertainment we enjoy today.

It's going to be a blast!

So, put on your viking helmet, dust off your love of Bugs Bunny cartoons, and we can all rock out to some old fashioned Wagner.


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Patsy Cline's 80th Birthday

Patsy Cline was born on this day in Virginia in 1932.


Perhaps most famous for her performance of "Crazy" (written by a young Willie Nelson), Patsy's voice and mid-century country stylings are still very much in vogue and end up in more movies, TV shows and commercials than you want to think about.  She's very much a part of the American soundtrack.

She retains a following among Austinites in no small part thanks to the nigh-nightly tribute to Patsy that's done at Austin's own Esther's Follies, a sort of comedy/ variety show that's had the Patsy Cline bit going since it debuted.  Maybe.  I don't know.  Patsy's music seems to fit lazy, hot evenings pretty well, so maybe she's still this popular across the south.

Cline was part of a great era of American Country before "popular" Country music became watered down pop-rock in the 80's and settled there in the 90's when the big money rolled in.  She was a performed at the Grand Ole Opry and a major talent.  Had she not died in a plane crash in 1963, there's really no telling where she would have ended up.  I suspect she would have continued performing for a long, long time.

Happy Birthday, Patsy.