Robert J

Mine are always like that - the piano has a strange number of keys, black/white configuation is wrong, or it turns into a toy piano. My blues piano dream debut in Chicago the other night went like that - but I was on the organ instead.

Chuck: this may help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut

I saw the Pixies reunion but missed Dino Jr last week due to work. Here's a review of that http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2005-07-2...livereviews.php Mould weighs in on the Husker reunion issue - though I think there's word he's going back in the catalogue for this tour with some Sugar, solo Mould tunes and possibly Husker Du http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/n...c_nm/mould_dc_2

I enjoyed the Axiom recording

I got tickets for Bob Mould's fall tour of his new album "Body of Song". He's playing Toronto October 2. I've not heard the album yet. Most amazingly Brendan Canty - drummer for Fugazi and on the CD - is performing with him Here's the tour sked http://www.bobmould.com/tour/dates/

He just can't get no respect - first "Booby", now this. Also I believe my vinyl copy liner notes of "Dialogue" mentions the use of "black chords" by Andrew Hill. Unless of course he was playing those block chords without using the white notes. (Wasn't the "Booby" thread a classic on the BNBB?)

I wanted to make sure I knew what ghosting was - I was right.

Jim - as a piano player would I get any value from it - ie, the gospel stuff, etc. Looks interesting. Though my Roland FP3 has some B3 sounds, there's just the one keyboard. Would I still get greasy? e-bay feedback looks good.

My list 1. We're Only In It For The Money (just listened the other day "Flower Punk" - the riff on Hey Joe - still smokes both musically and lyrically: Hey punk, where you goin? with that Button on your shirt? I'm goin? to the love-in to sit & play My bongos in the dirt.) 2. Apostrophe (as Jim said - this was grade 11 for me) 3. Joe's Garage II and III (wacked out as a concept album, but some serious guitar soloing and textures. Plus one of the best rhythm sections Frank had - Vinne Colaiuta and Arthur Barrow "Keep It Greasy" and "Watermleon in Easter Hay" are my highlights.) 4. Sheik Yerbouti (deadly satire, but has Terry Bozzio and Adrian Belew) 5. Ship Arriving Too Late To Save A Drowning Witch (I know it has Valley Girl, but it also has Steve Vai and Chad Wackerman - saw this version of the band live at Pine Knob, Michigan about a year later) others, no order Roxy & Elsewhere Just Another Band from LA - the only tolerable Flo & Eddie album, though not for everyone Man From Utopia

"My general formula for my students is "Follow your bliss." Find where it is, and don't be afraid to follow it. " Joseph Campbell

Good thing I avoided it. I'd be upset if I paid full pop for it (over $40) 30 June 2005 Copyright © 2005 The Toronto Star Few bass players in the world could muster the nerve to fill the breach for Stanley Clarke with two minutes notice, as Toronto's Atilla Darvas did last night on the main stage of the Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival. Clarke, the American jazz legend, failed to put in an appearance with his bandmates - New York jazz banjo wizard Bela Fleck and French master jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty - in Trio!, one of the Festival's big-draw headliners. Darvas and drummer Frank Botos had just performed for an hour with pianist Robi Botos, Frank's brother, in a singularly athletic and well-organized set that drew a standing ovation. When Clarke was a no-show - his 3 p.m. flight to Toronto was cancelled, as were subsequent flights from New York yesterday evening, because of a severe thunderstorm, TDJF artistic director Pat Taylor told the Star - Ponty and Fleck pressed The Robi Botos Trio's rhythm section into last-minute service. To put a little more pressure on Darvas than the virtually unknown musician needed, the jazz stars then decided to open their set with the absent Clarke's own complex tribute to John Coltrane, "Song to John." While Fleck and Ponty established the melodic theme, Darvas and Botos settled into a quiet, restrained, un-Clarke-like groove and seemed quite content with this achievement until the violin solo suddenly peaked, and all eyes fell on Darvas. To his great credit, the stand-in made not the slightest attempt to imitate the missing master, and while his solo was admirable under the circumstances, it seemed to have a lot to do with ad hoc scatting and little to do with the weighty structure of the composition. And it barely hit the lip of the stage. Even so, the 1,000 people inside the big tent roared their approval. A for effort, Attila. One for the scrapbook. Despite the applause, Fleck and Ponty seemed unable throughout the 90-minute performance to overcome the shock of their colleague's absence. The second piece, the standard, "All The Things You Are," was clearly thrown in to provide some cohesion between the two sets of players, strangers to each other. While the simple shuffle was solid enough, and Darvas held the groove steady, the star solos were little more than exhibitions of astounding technique - Ponty's rich, fluid, elegant and quite classical in construction, Fleck's furious and fast as the beats of a hummingbird's wings, a million notes per bar defined in brilliant, breathtaking detail. Ponty and Fleck then politely dismissed the bass player and drummer to perform Fleck's composition "South" as a two hander. It was probably the gem of the evening, a brilliantly constructed, modal abstraction of the musical imagery of the traditional American South, from Appalachia to Louisiana - all flailing banjo and fiery fiddle licks.

Here's the problem. On KNTU's site it says: The managerial staff of KTCU is currently on "Summer Break" and will be returning fall 2005.

Astrologer to sue NASA over comet plans A Russian court has ruled that an astrologer can proceed with a lawsuit against the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for its plans to bombard a comet. The astrologer claims the destruction of the comet would "disrupt the natural balance of the universe." Marina Bai's case was thrown out of a lower court because Russia has no jurisdiction over NASA, but the ruling was overturned when her lawyer, Alexandra Molokhova, was able to show that the agency's office in the US Embassy in Moscow does fall under Russian jurisdiction. Ms Bai seeks a ruling that will restrict NASA in its plans to annihilate a section of the Tempel 1 comet, in a project that has been dubbed Deep Impact, as well as punitive damages of $US300 million. "My client believes that the NASA project infringes upon her spiritual and life values as well as the natural life of the cosmos and would disrupt the natural balance of forces in the universe," her lawyer said. The lawyer says Tempel 1 has sentimental value to Ms Bai because her grandparents met when her grandfather pointed the comet out to his future wife. In a $US279 million project, NASA in January launched the Deep Impact spacecraft. It will travel to the comet and release an impactor - a 370-kilogram self-guided mass - on July 4, which is expected to create a crater that could be as large as a football stadium. Scientists believe that the exposed material from the resulting crater will yield clues to the formation of the solar system and provide important information on altering the course of comets or asteroids on a collision course with earth. Effects of the collision will be visible from earth with an amateur telescope.

You know what I'd like to see from the 70s and it does not seem available on DVD? Fernwood 2-Night with Martin Mull, Fred Willard etc. That's got to be one of the funniest shows of all time.

Ralph J. Gleason’s Jazz Casual programs are excellent examples of history saved from the fate of the dustbin. http://www.allaboutjazz.com/articles/a0599_01.htm

Maybe the next Organissimo recording should be done in a field. How about Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor? The bands I heard there always sounded great.

At the same time Brahms was known to have said "I would be a fool if I played my music the same way every time" - regarding his own performances of solo pianoi and chamber music. The tendency to notate music ever more precisely came from the experience that there were great local differences in performance practice. ← Mike that's a good point. It fascinates me to think that the performances of classical works (say the 19th century) must have come primarily from reading the music only. How would an entire orchestra get to hear another orchestra's version? What did the composer truly intend for his sound? May be diffrerent for solo piano repertoire where you had many teachers mucking about, many of them the original composers. And - to this century - don't we as listeners get a "standard" version in our heads of Beethoven's symphonies - say, from the first recording you ever heard? That's another intersting quirk of listeners - the bias towards the 1st version (at least in classical music) you are introduced to.

Maybe he's a fan of recent advances in teledildonics.

I agree with the Beatles comment - I learned that solo as a teen and I'm not a classical pianist. And yes Nancarrow (and others ) were omitted. It was a New Yorker article after all. Found some of the comments on how classical phrasing was affected by the recording process new to me. Would have like to had more on field recordings etc. It's also obvious Ross is not up on a host of recent electronic issues. But the focus of the piece is sort of a long book review of 3 books and not a "critical" essay per se.

Interesting article on history of recording, classical performance etc http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/a...606crat_atlarge

the second one sounds like Enduring Love - did not see the film; the book by Ian MacEwan is great

Does Corona qualify as a wheat beer ?

My young son wants me to go see this - but that's because Sandler and Rock are in it. I don't think he'd quite get the original. Reading above about the Possideon Adventure remake - I was reminded of reading Mad Magzines as a kid in the mid-70s. I couldn't watch these films at the theatre, but felt like I knew them and the actors through the spoofs. I think that one was Poop-side Down Adventure, or some sort. I miss those old Mad writers!

True Jim. I forgot that George Duke had something to do with it. Too bad some people's (80s) recordings get associated with the wrong representation of themselves (ie, "don't Worry, be Happy").

Chuck - that's hard to see. Is it a Brinkmann? We don't get them up here. Nice price if it is. My next choice may be Vermont Castings. Not cheap but I use mine like some people do their ovens, and they ain't cheap nowadays either. Moose - no "Kiss the Cook". After 3-4 beers my wife won't touch my lips, even if I grill something sweet.