Mmmm…oatmeal…
This here contraption weds a camera to a kite for some intriguing low-aerial photography. (Ummm…I was sent the link by email and forgot to ask if I could say by whom). There are some cracking good pictures at the link.
The head photographer and my old art gig requisitioned (and got!) quite a large a remote-control helicopter to use as a photography platform. It didn’t turn out so well. Gear in those days was bulky, remotes were hinky and the camera shake was fierce. On the other hand, he spent weeks playing with a big, expensive toy and got the company to pay for it. So, w00t, really.
Also in my inbox today, also from someone who will remain anonymous because I forgot to ask, this link to an excellent album of some dude playing classical guitar pieces on a ukulele. Two ukes, actually, I think. It works surprisingly well.
You have to sign up at the link to download the album (it’s kind of interesting what they’re trying to do there, but no thanks)…but they’ll let you listen to the whole thing for free.
Me, I’ve got my annual bloodwork tomorrow morning early. I really, really don’t want to go on a statin, but I really, really don’t want to pick a fight with my doctor, either. He’s a crabby sod as it is. So I’ve been living on a diet that includes lots of oat bran, almonds, lecithin granules, apples and niacin. Does this shit really lower cholesterol? I don’t know and, in the bigger scheme of things, I don’t much care. I don’t think they’ve worked out the role of cholesterol yet; I’m just trying to queer the test.
I’m about an hour into my 14-hour fast and I’m feeling a lot of class envy at the moment. You people in the “sure, I’m going to eat dinner tonight” class, you really frost my ass. You know that?
April 29, 2013 — 7:44 pm
Comments: 41
Uketacular
So, Saturday we went to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. They played the Albert Hall Friday night, so they could be forgiven for being less than enthusiastic in the auditorium of the community college in Rye.
But they weren’t. They put in an awesome performance. We were such a small audience, we did our best to hoot and stamp and sing when asked (something Brits do with more alacrity than you might think). I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a concert so much.
They did everything from Handel to Lady Gaga, and they did it with a straight face and an amazing degree of musicality. If you think about it, eight ukes probably equals three or four actual musical instruments, so it all works out.
Worth a trawl through YouTube, though I didn’t find any clips that I thought adequately captured the spirit of the thing. Much better if you catch them in person. They’ll be in the US again for a bit next month, but they tour more or less constantly (and have done for twenty seven years, apparently. Before uke was cool. Wait…it’s cool now, right?).
September 24, 2012 — 8:35 pm
Comments: 22
The best thing you’ll watch today
Best thing you’ll see today, but first I get to explain the joke.
George Formby was a beloved British institution (much like Broadmoor). He was a very popular singer/actor/comedian of the ’30s and ’40s. He played a mean ukulele (banjolele, if you want to get technical) and sang cheerful songs laden with crude sexual innuendo. Sort of a singing saucy seaside postcard.
This guy — the guy in the picture — is starring in a one-man play about Formby. He plays Formby. As a promotional thingie, he made a YouTube of “Formby” performing Fifty Cents’ In Da Club.
In case you are not familiar with Mr Cents’ oeuvre, here is his original video of the song, here is a version of the song showing the lyrics for video, and here is just the lyrics. Well, you can skip all that if you want, but it’s pretty hard to catch the words without text. So here is the main repeated refrain:
You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub
Look mami, I got the X if you’re into taking drugs
I’m into having sex, I ain’t into making love
So come give me a hug, if you’re into getting rubbed
Okay, ready? Now go watch.
There is something profound about how easily the edgy rap song transformed itself into a jingly uke tune. I just can’t quite figure out what that something is.
August 21, 2012 — 9:45 pm
Comments: 16
Fetid nuts
Ohhhh…this is perfecto. Lefties singing about the need to give O one more term.
No, seriously. It’s in the just so toe-curlingly awful it’s worth a watch class, no doubts. But be sure to read the lyrics (or watch the subtitled version) — otherwise some of it is pretty impenetrable.
I particularly love being called an incontinent fetid nut by people whining about the lack of civility in politics.
Oh, as for their disclaimer:
One Term More is a transformative political parody rendered under fair use. It is intended solely as social commentary, criticism and personal expression. Its character and purpose is informational, noncommercial and not-for-profit. IT IS NOT FOR SALE.
You might think that’s a glimmer self-awareness. Like, we realize this video makes us look like kiddie-diddling douche tools, but it’s all in good fun, wink-wink.
Um, no. What that means is, this is a parody of Les Mis, please don’t sue us.
True story. When Uncle B and I were first dating, he took me to see Les Mis. Neither of us had been to a big West End musical before, and this one was the most famous one running. That’s all we knew about it (not counting Victor Hugo).
We didn’t know each other very well at the time. So intermission rolls around, and I’m kind of cutting my eyes over to him, and he’s kind of giving me the hairy eyeball. And finally, one of us says, tentatively, “this thing really…kind of…sucks, doesn’t it?” God, it was awful. There wasn’t a recognizable, hummable tune in the whole fucking thing.
Musical theater has fallen a long, long way since Oklahoma.
Oh, I bet you guys thought I was going to do Joe Biden. Well, I’m sorry, but all the Photoshop in the world can’t make that man look any stupider than he looks au naturelle.
August 14, 2012 — 10:41 pm
Comments: 43
I mighta knowed
So, I was looking for ukulele plans (yeah, don’t ask) and I ran across this place. I might’ve known there’d be a whole subculture dedicated to buying, selling, building and playing cigar box instruments…with their own forums and festivals and marketplaces. And, no doubt, secret handshake and dental plan.
Also, music. If you like gritty nasty slide blues, there are some really good tracks on that album. There are also some less than wonderful tracks on that album, but hey — free album!
July 10, 2012 — 10:29 pm
Comments: 11
Tiny Bubbles
w00t! Reader Big Blue Bug, down there in the comments, promised me a Don Ho ukulele headstock inlay in return for some Don Ho art.
Sadly, I cannot accept the gift. You know what they’re doing to people who export shell inlay these days?
This CITES enforcement thing is a trip; I’ve heard some horror stories from people trying to import antique instruments with ivory, bone and pearl inlay.
Either that, or totally no big deal, depending on who you talk to. Which tells me it’s probably another thing that individual Customs agents have a lot of autonomy over. One bureaucrat with a hair across his ass on a Monday morning can make a lot of lives miserable.
All’s I know is, I tried to buy some pearl from StewMac and they can’t ship the stuff outside the US. But DePaule can do it because they ship directly from their supplier in Viet Nam.
Yep. It’s another one of those “international” treaties that somehow manages to crush trade in one country and toss it to another. I’d call it an unintended consequence, but I’m not at all sure it is.
Anyway, I’ll be cutting my own inlays, but here’s a little Don Ho lovin’ for BBB, just for being awesome. Mwah.
June 13, 2012 — 11:04 pm
Comments: 5
G’bye Earl Scruggs, 1924-2012
Wow. Earl Scruggs died in hospital last night.
Few musician dominate a genre the way Earl utterly pwned bluegrass banjo. He was the undisputed god of three-finger pickers.
After Earl, a thousand imitators. Eventually, there were faster players, there were fancier players, but nobody ever matched his perfect, clean, bell-like clarity of tone. He had an awesome stage presence — calm and genial — and, dammit, he wrote most of the great banjo anthems his own self.
Here, I’ll save you the trouble: a YouTube search of “Earl Scruggs”. You’ve got the whole weekend. Go!
March 29, 2012 — 11:48 am
Comments: 45
Yep, that’s a banjo
So, this is an indie band from Beijing called Shan Ren. It means “Mountain Men” but they have a lot of different, mostly modern Western, influences. This playlist will give you a taste (huh. Amazing how much an electric guitar through a wah-wah pedal sounds Chinese).
Last year, they traveled across Yunnan province filming the locals and recording music. Turns out, most folk music is about drinking moonshine. How strangely familiar.
In honor of that, they recorded this Drinking Song, which I thought was lots of fun. Based on a local folk song, the main chorus means, “you have to drink, whether you want to or not.”
What? Oh, no. If politics wants me to pay attention to it again, it’s going to have to stop sucking so hard.
January 4, 2012 — 11:24 pm
Comments: 21
Electric kazoo, bitches!
Just in time for Christmas, the electric kazoo!
Yes, it’s real! And yes, it’s every bit as stupid and pointless as you think. (Also, yes, that’s a little teeny, tiny 9 volt Fender amp back there).
What? Look, I’m a banjo player. You were expecting taste?
December 1, 2011 — 9:09 pm
Comments: 39
Can’t talk. New banjo.
Huh. First time I’ve ever gotten overnight service on an eBay purchase (turns out the seller has a relative in the courier business).
Yep, this is the banjo I bought by accident. I watch interesting banjos and put in a bid if I think they’re underpriced. It’s usually harmless fun; an underpriced instrument always goes through the roof in the last seconds of the auction.
Not this time. I was all on my ownsome bidding on this one. Oh, well…I got a great instrument at a great price.
It’s such a buyer’s market, I’d put all my dough in underpriced banjos. If I had any dough.
This is an English banjo of the Twenties. It was played in a dance orchestra. As it happens, the seller was able to tell me quite a bit about it and its first owner, which is really weird because he didn’t until I asked. Today. After the sale.
Why not put it all the interesting bits in the description? Might’ve fetched a few more quid. People are so weird.
The pre-War Gibsons beloved of bluegrass players were also originally sold for this market, the orchestral and dance band market of the Twenties and Thirties. They’re loud as hell, because they had to be to hold their own against the brass section.
Which is why the bluegrass boys love them. Earl Scruggs played a Gibson Granada in the Forties which set the standard for what a banjo should sound like. An especially good Gibson with all its original bits will easily sail over $200K.
This one…didn’t cost anything like that, but I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a louder banjo. It is, in the terminology of banjophiles, a hoss.
November 21, 2011 — 9:07 pm
Comments: 41