Happy As Kings

Gotye

If I put the link here, it won't go down the memory hole as quickly as in other places.

Gotye

Singer, Ashley Cooper

Today, Mom's retirement community enjoyed the talents of Mr. Ashley Cooper.  I very much enjoyed Mr. Cooper's narrative between songs, his interaction with the residents, and how he included a family of children visiting their grandmother (they were his 'backup dancers').

Thank you for the enjoyable afternoon, Mr. Cooper.

As Time Goes By

Kansas City area groups should find Mr. Cooper's show enjoyable.

Hallowe'en treat from The Teaching Company

The Teaching Company's website has a free lecture from Professor Robert Greenberg on Hector Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique. 

(I didn't know that the saxophone was refined for the purpose of patriotic Napoleonic-era marches meant to inspire hysterical patriotism -- cue theme music for political ads?)

Mama Mia!

Abba was the only musical group I actively collected albums from (which I still have), so I had to go see the movie Mama Mia!

I've done that twice, so far. 

I listen to other kinds of music, from plain chant to Mozart, to Gilbert and Sullivan, to Ella Fitzgerald, to Paul Desmond and Gerry Mulligan, to the Chieftains, to Queen, to ...   Music just burrows irresistably into your soul and you become it for a time. 

I enjoy the other music, but I love Abba, especially when paired with sea-nery.  Sunshine sparkling on the waves behind a sailboat is a magical sight.  I'll probably go see the movie again -- anyone free? (be warned that I sing along) -- and then I'll buy the video when it is released.

This song isn't in the movie, but I find it the most fun to dance to.

The Little Shoemaker by The Gaylords

Today, I heard this on my husband's XM radio program for the '50s. Although the song was 'on the chart' in 1954 when I was 3-4, and even though I haven't heard it since, I was able to sing along fairly well. My husband, who has heard almost everything, didn't know it. I had to put it here so I could find it easily.

Kansas City singers

The best friend of one of our daughters made the newspaper.

Female artists are giving men a run for the charts, 22 January 2008, Kansas City Star

Not all the best singer-songwriters are women. It only seems that way.

So many female solo artists have released worthwhile albums the last several months that it’s hard to keep track of what’s real good and what’s just OK. Here are some of the better ones.

...

LIKE THOSE? CHECK OUT THESE LOCALS If you like any of the artists in today’s story, you should have a listen to these local artists. We have music from each on our music blog, Back to Rockville, on KansasCity.com

• Jenny Carr

• Abigail Murphy

• Julia Othmer

• Julia Peterson

• Kasey Rausch

• Kristie Stremel

• Adrianne “Dri” Verhoeven.

I hope I've made it obvious that you're supposed to click on Abigail Murphy.

Pachelbel Bedtime

Amusing, but with tissues at the ready.

All Four Stanzas

Isaac Asimov writing about the poem "The Defence of Fort M'Henry" set to the music of, "To Anacreon in Heaven," and otherwise known as, "The Star Spangled Banner."

Link: All Four Stanzas.

A copy of the text of this site just arrived on my alumni email list -- the Brat list, not a civilian list.  I've always like Isaac Asimov's writings, to the point that his book, Asimov's Chronology of the World, was our main guidebook while the kids and I homeschooled during their teen years.

All Four Stanzas is an inspiring essay.  I wish I'd have known about it while we were still homeschooling.

Daddy Cool

The opening ceremony of the Olympics was pretty spectacular, what with the anvil with the flames coming out of it, and the skating "sparks."  I, myself, can't imagine skating with flames running down my back, but then I'm no longer living life in the fast lane.

During the ceremony, though, I did have a flashback to life in the faster lane (certainly not the fastest by any means).  As the Olympic teams were marching onto the field to a selection of music, according to the American announcer, "random American pop songs from the '80s," the American team marched on, and I cracked up laughing.  Daddy Cool!?  Where did that come from?

The last time I heard Daddy Cool, disco was king, and I was wearing 2" platform sandals, and dancing at Discoabend ("disco night" in German) at a tiny Gasthaus in Traetzhof, Germany, about 20Ks from the border between West and East Germany.  In between songs, I was drinking Spezi (Cola mixed 50/50 with German Fanta -- not the fluorescent orange stuff you find here; German Fanta is more like Squirt) and munching on wurst and Pommes (pronounced, roughly, poe-mes) -- aka French fries.

The photo obviously isn't of me at Discoabend, but is rather a contemporary-with-Daddy Cool photo of me and our cat Pippin (Pan rest his cranky little soul) out near the East German border.  Pippin loved riding in cars, so we'd take him out driving, and let him go walking on his leash.  We almost took him to Austria with us, but the health and import/export details were too fiddly, so he stayed with friends whom he already knew.  After we got back from Austria (about a week), we stopped by their house to pick him up.  He took one look at us, and went and sat in a corner and wouldn't speak to us at all.  Boy was he ticked at having been deserted.  He wound up being an international cat (he did cross borders after all), and lived to be 17.

It's amazing the memories that come back from hearing a nearly-forgotten song.

I love viking kittens

Link: Viking Kittens -- Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song.

Hear those Bonham drums?