Category: Music

Musical Selection:

1/16/2020

I have a high tolerance for foreign language music. Here are a couple of selections that are fairly heavy rotation.

The first is from that marvelous animated film The Triplets of Belleville.

And, though it's hard for me not to reference John Prime's infectious Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian, some Iz cannot go awry. Especially when a person has been studying the uke for a few months now...

And to round out the trio, I was torn between a short documentary about Dancehall music in Japan (after all, I went down this rabbit hole, might as well bring back a treat...) and an Australian video that shows you how to sing Despacito using English words, which is, by the way a work of genius.

Remember the television ad, "If you can spell socks, you can speak Spanish!"? Somebody certainly has not been measuring out his life with coffee spoons!

Anyway, none of that is on my actual playlist. But this is:

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Transpac –– Oh! Ho! Ho! It's Magic.

7/29/2019

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Oh, Oh...Never believe it's not so. This is truly not one of the better tunes to have playing on repeat in the gooey jukebox between a person's ears, but alas.

Plus, since Pilot included two former Bay City Rollers, this song is extra Velcro®ish.

Wait, seriously, how can I resist posting a YouTube of those classic Bay City Rollers tunes?

I can't...but later in the post. It will be a special treat and possible ear-worm infestation.

But back to this particular song.

Pilot's soaring and incessant declaration ("Oh! Ho! Ho! It's magic!") played in counterpoint to the couple of weeks of prep and racing of the 2019 Transpacific ocean Race –– the Transpac. Because of course, my favorite skipper sailed this 2250-mile-long offshore race aboard the famous Bill-Lee-designed Merlin*.

*Quick word about Merlin: this is the Merlin that set the course record in 1977.

It's the Merlin after which the Merlin Trophy is named.

The current owner is named Chip Merlin –– you can recognize him by his enormous white grin in every picture of him on the boat.

He acquired the boat about a year and a half ago...I think if there's a famous boat with your name on it, you might just have to get it.

The boat could hardly have been better prepared for the trip from Long Beach, California to Honolulu, Hawaii: the crew included two fire-fighters among her experienced and talented team; new sails; higher degrees in engineering, MacGyvering, and meterology; a redesigned physical plant and dozens of Pacific passages under her keel; extra duct tape and A & D ointment; and the latest in safety gear and information technology

And yet.

It's not a safe world and we all need some good luck to get us along. Sailors especially.

So while playing brave little toaster on shore, I wasn't about to ignore the encouraging messages of a magical world.

Just because it's magical thinking doesn't mean it's not true, right? Like the song says. Oh! Ho! Ho!

In a mere 8 days, Merlin's race was run.

Several Transpac boats retired because of technical difficulties. One of the catamarans ran into a mysterious nighttime something and tore a hole in her bow. Another boat actually sank (the sailors were rescued by their competitors, naturally, because, well –– sailors). Nobody, thank goodness, was lost at sea.

Merlin finished a quite respectable third; their stories range from the sublime (rainbows around the moon) to the ridiculous (anything to do with using the head, also, two people beaned by flying fish). They shredded some sail and lost their electronics for a bit, but it worked out safely in the end.

Here's the link to the Transpac YC's amazing images of Merlin.

And a brace of BCR for your listening enjoyment:

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Musical Options: Dig it.

3/19/2019

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My daddo used to call it Acid Jazz –– the kind of noodle-y, endlessly rifting, plink-plinking recordings that feel like the soundtrack to a bad date.

It's why I often think I just don't like jazz.

Full disclosure: also not a fan of long Phishy jams, either.

But then there's Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, and Melody Gardot.

It's a beautiful world.

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Musical Selection...With Accordian

8/24/2018

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A little something musical that I am enjoying.

The band is "Dark, Dark, Dark."

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Musical Selection: Accentuate the Positive

1/30/2018

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Go on, turn the news off for a few minutes.

Turn this up, dance around, make a list of all the things you love.

Then, I dunno, maybe consider giving up expressing your outrage for a whole day?

Perhaps take stock of the way the air is moving outside?

Or think about a song that YOU cannot resist. (And by the way, I want to know what song that is...)

Peace out.

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Musical Selection: Storytelling Songs

9/15/2017

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It surprises me when someone says, "Oh, I don't know the words. I just listen to the music."

Words being important to me, yes, but still, how sad to miss the lyrical turns, the clever wordplay, the telegraphic details.

Sheryl Crow says, "He says his name is William, but I'm sure it's Bill or Billy or Mack or Buddy, and he's plain ugly to me." She's showing us what it is to see through the ploys of a barfly trying to get the girl's attention.

So when Ms. Crow goes on to announce that all she wants to do is have some fun, we can see it's not so easy –– even while drinking beer at noon in a bar that faces a car wash.

Of course, maybe the words and story is what appeals to me. They are kind of my things, after all.

Like this song from Bree Sharp.

Granted, it's a ballad, which would lead anyone to expect a narrative, but she paints a noir, Bonnie-and-Clyde picture of the end of a spree.

But why oh why does Lipton Iced Tea snip a bit of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweat's SOB in their television ad campaign?

Yes, the hand-clap is catchy, but there's a jarring cognitive dissonance when one pairs this particular song with a hearty recommendation for something to drink.

Someone at the ad agency must have had a sense of humor.

(Says she, making up a story.)

PS: And on the other hand, we have songs like Louie Louie.

The words are so indistinguishable that you can put whatever comes to mind into those slurred lines, and all you are left with as a listener is a passionate understanding for the need to leave.

I know it's supposed to be a sea-shanty, but honestly it could just as easily be a call to take up needlepoint or remove potatoes from the stove. Wooah, baby, me gotta go.

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The Would-Be Farm: It's All Re-Runs on Farm TV

9/7/2017

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Beach life. I worked as the first mate on a small passenger ferry* that shuttled tourists from Pass-a-Grille Beach across a short stretch of salt water to an uninhabited barrier island called Shell Key.

If there were customers, we'd also take them on a sunset cruise.

It was a great gig. My sister and I job-shared. We rendered tourists happy by the application of two-hour doses of undeveloped beach and surf. They got to see the real Florida. Sometimes they tipped.

(*The Shell Key Shuttle is still in biz, but under new management.)

The boss, Captain Alva, was perhaps the most mature and sensible adult male I'd known up till then. He offered positive, actionable advice when asked and took joy in the highlights of the day. Still does.

Inevitably, after a sunset cruise, the friendly fishing folk hanging around Merry Pier would ask how the sunset had been.

Because I love to get the laugh, I usually answered with something flip, deadpanned for shock value: "Aw, you know –– same old same old. It was a re-run. Saw it last week."

At the Would-Be Farm, we get a lot of that re-run stuff.

The fire-pit doing its thing, for instance. A bonfire doesn't seem to get old.

Even if we don't have any magic on hand, there's a lot of material for rapid oxidation. Brush transformed to dust. Heat and light. Sticks in the fire, sparks in the sky.

The night-time music is on repeat, too. Between the maniacal Whip-poor-wills and the spring peepers, it's something to have a bit of peace. Not to mention, though I am, the canids.

Coyotes serenade us most nights. We call it the chorus of the damned.

We try to pick out the individual voices in the quavering-howling-yapping-yipping wall of sound. In late summer, the pups join in with typically youthful enthusiasm.

The closest human sound might be atonal music by way of a middle-school band tuning up. An example? Sure, she typed, grinning evilly.

Check this Messiaen YouTube clip. At your own risk, by the by: Despite everything, I think I'm getting addicted to it.

We often end the sunlit day at the beaver pond.

We put a two-seater deer stand up a pine tree so we can get above some of the mosquitoes and see beyond the fringe of cattails that surrounds the pond.

The beavers –– true to stereotype –– clock in at dusk and work their fannies off maintaining the mud dams. They are reliable as clockwork, chugging through the water like mammalian tugboats.

With the right show, we can watch re-runs –– one most devoutly hopes –– for years.

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Musical Selections...Lhasa de Sela

7/14/2017

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I am only sorry that I didn't know about Lhasa de Sela when she was still alive. I don't believe her untimely death makes her music better, but it certainly makes listening to it all the sweeter.

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Music Selections: Word Tacos

6/9/2017

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Sometimes a person just needs a silly song in a different language.

!Hay Machete!

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Roger Moore? Et Tu?

5/23/2017

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He was not my favorite Bond, but he was a smooth Saint.

And he was a pop culture icon; Amy Winehouse didn't have to explain anything past "like Roger Moore," because we got it.