A great gift for your musically inclined friend is a maxon. Having the pedal that you want is a great thing – going without a pedal at all is a rotten thing. If you don’t know what a pedal is or you think it is only a thing on a bike, I invite you to do some research and gain a little insight into the world of musical accessories.
My list of live shows that I have seen will be growing by leaps and bounds in the coming months as I will be seeing Blue Man Group (woo hoo!) as well as Tim Minchin (also woo hoo). Blue Man Group I have seen before, both in Vegas and Chicago. The show is pretty much the same each time but I could watch it 50 times without getting bored. It’s a TON of fun if you get the chance to go. As for Tim Minchin, this one is a little bit of a risk since I’ve only ever seen his work in pieces on You Tube. What I saw was excellent and I’ve also heard great things about his show from other people who have seen it in other venues, so the risk is tiny. He is a piano playing comedian and if you want to sample his stuff I recommend ‘Prejudice’ for a first exposure.
I always thought that when it came to modern holiday music, the real competition seemed to be between the Trans Siberian Orchestra and Mannheim Steamroller. Being a fan of the rock and roll electric guitar and being against the harpsichord, I am a firm TSO fan. I flip the channel when Mannheim Steamroller comes on.
Until today.
I just heard a really, REALLY nice version of “Silent Night”. It starts out with vocals, kinda humming, then into piano, and violins. For the first 2/3 of the song, I was totally in rapture of it. At that point it devolved into harpsichords and strange outer space noises, but continued the violins. I would put up with the last third time and again to hear the first parts.
I never thought it would happen, but I like a Mannheim Steamroller song.
With the tragic lack of any new Schoolhouse Rock songs over the past couple of decades, it seems that the members of They Might Be Giants are beginning to pick up the slack. I’m a big fan of the elements video below, and I am enough of a science geek to get every, single, little reference in the video and the lyrics and how everything is related to together and why it’s funny. Yep, I could probably write them an extra verse.
Okay, so we may be a little behind the times, but it seems that after all of the fun that the entire world had a poking fun at R. Kelly and his ridonculous “Trapped in the Closet” ‘Hip-Hopera”, he’s at it again. That’s right folks, he’s back with even more episodes, characters, and subplots. Word is that he’s even going to be releasing a third set of videos in the very near future. I don’t know what drives this man to create such hilarity in the guise of a serious artist, but bravo sir. Keep ‘em coming.
Ipods have become the bane of my existence. Don’t get me wrong – I love mine. It’s red and sleek and has more memory than I could ever hope for. And it’s one of the older ones so it doesn’t even have as much memory or even features as the newer ones have.
But EVERYBODY has one and they use them at the most inappropriate times.
Like during school.
Like when I’m talking to them.
Like when I’m answering their question and they tell me to give them a second so they can skip ahead to a song they like so they can listen to it WHILE I’m answering their question.
GRRR!!! ARGH!!!!!
What a strange concept. A misspelled description of a hearing impaired jungle cat as the name of your heavy metal band. Wikipedia indicates that Joe Elliot came up with the name while making up imaginary band names in his English class.
I wonder what other names he came up with.
Welcome to the stage, Blynd Pumah.
Next up is the number one hit from Dum Tyger.
Or the new band from London, Anosmyc Jagguyar.
(That’s the misspelled version of Anosmic, or one who has lost his sense of smell.)
Rock on.
In only a couple of hours now the newest release by the Guitar Hero franchise will be released for all. The Aerosmith edition features mostly songs from the legendary band with a few other bands thrown in. I was somewhat disappointed with the effort put into the 80′s edition, but I’m somewhat optimistic about this newest version. The songlist looks great, and I’ll let you know what I think as soon as I can give it a test drive.
Tonight we went out for dinner in Mesa to Organ Stop Pizza. It’s the third time I’ve made the trip out to this particular restaurant, yet I’m amazed every time. They serve decent pizza along with assorted bread, pasta, and salad. The main attraction is the immense organ that takes up one whole wall of the two-story building. The organist plays a variety of songs from traditional organ style music to patriotic songs to the theme from Star Wars. Dozens of baffles control the air flow to the scores of pipes behind a plexiglass wall which opens and closes to allow more or less sound into the room. The organ itself rises from under the floor and turns to give everyone a view of the musician as he plays the songs and controls all of the effects including drums, pipes, cowbells, pianos, flags, bubbles, and lights. It is truly an amazing experience to all of your senses.
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What if there is absolutely nothing happening that you are interested in seeing or watching right now? Sign up for their e-mail newsletter and they will keep you informed of events as they are announced. (Don’t worry that it will come with alot of spam because they don’t share their e-mail list with others.)
My son thinks more highly of my abilities that I do. He saw that show, “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” and just because I could sing along in spots, he thinks I should go on the show. Little does he know that anytime I don’t know the words to a song, I just make them up. For example, did you know that it’s “Caribbean Queen” and not “Caribou Queen”? I just found out last year. I assumed it was a protest song about reindeer. Go figure.
I picked up my second Trout Fishing in America CD recently. They have some of the funniest songs ever on the first one I got (“Big Trouble”) and if you are a parent and you don’t own this CD I strongly encourage you to get it. Maybe skip ‘The Cat Came Back’ for the really young ones unless you see the humor of having cat hair in ground meat but you’ll rip a gasket trying to sing along with ‘All I Want is a Proper Cup of Coffee’. ‘Pico de Gallo’ is a song that’s going to stick in your head – they manage to rhyme ‘pico de gallo’ with ‘Ontario’. I could say something great about almost every song on the CD but I’ve got to save the highest praise for a life saving song called ‘Lullaby’. It’s a beautiful lullaby that is like the baby whisperer I’ve always wanted. Babies go from screaming at the top of their lungs to silent and calm the INSTANT the singing starts. It’s shocking. Of course then you have to play it over and over again until you come up with a better plan, but it really helps.
Are you interested in learning about music and especially piano music? If so, you might want to sign up for a free piano newsletter from PlayPiano.com. Each newsletter includes piano lessons & piano chords for you to practice and comes to you every 5 days or so. You’ll get 101 newsletters so that means 101 Piano lessons! You’ll learn about chords and progressions and all for free. If you want to continue or augment your education, you can buy the DVDs also available at the site.
I know that you’ve all probably seen the Pachelbel’s Rant clip from Youtube and other video sites around the web. But here it is again. I hope that this guy gets some more material because this is some seriously funny stuff. With the number of three chord pop songs in the public consciousness, there’s got to be plenty of material for good musically-based comedy. Anyway, here it is again.