Classical Ruination

I said this year I wouldn't post as much, last year it was over a post a day, but this is post 188 so that is still and average of a post every two days, although some gaps between postings have been bigger than that , and obviously this is a post straight after yesterdays post.

I've listened to a chepo compilation called "Rock Instrumental Classics: Volume 3 - The Seventies" which barring Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" , Electric Light Orchestra's "Daybreaker" and "Apricot Brandy" by Rhinoceros , is made up of funk and pop. There is "Rock and Roll Part 2" by Gary Glitter (and yes Paul Gadd , is an evil , vile person quite rightly behind bars, but should that stop us from appreciating the work of the rest of the band and his cowriter Mike Leander?) which it compares to "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac , in that there's no real tune just a relentless sound with primeval calls and is still, in my opinion and impressive pop record , but I hope Gadd's royalties have been sequestered to help the sort of people the vile man abused.

Anyway in the songs on th ealbum are "Joy" by Apollo 100 a take on "Jesu Joy of Man's Desire", one of my favourite Bach pieces , "Also Sprach Zarathustra(2001)" an jazz take on the Strauss piece by Deodato , and "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy , all of which are more than enjoyable , especially the Deodato one. That's three classical lifts on one single disc compilation.

Manfred Mann's Earthband got permission from Gustav Holst's estate to use the composer's theme from "Jupiter" in "The Planets" suite in their single "Joybringer" . Keith Emerson with The Nice and Emerson Lake and Palmer plundered the classics  impressively over the years , with Mussorsky and Copland featuring highly in the band's repetoire.

Lots of pop songs left classical themes and melodies , Pachelbel's "Canon" reappearing so many times in the charts in various guises.

I've hardly scratched the surface on this, but will leave it here for now.

Stumbolero

While looking for something else I came across a flash mob take on Ravel's "Bolero" . I had seen a wonderful one for Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" from his Ninth Symphony and this is just as charming in the way it draws the crowd of all ages, races, sexes and any other division we have and they all love it. Enjoying the music, taking photographs and videos, and loving it.

The great thing about these flash mob performances is that you learn how the pieces are actually made up. It is truly fascinating.

There are many Classical Flash Mobs on Youtube, check this list here.

I know this is not a very meaty post but I just wanted to share this phenomenon with anyone who stumbles across this blog post.

Enjoy and maybe learn, and hopefully one day you will be lucky enough to see one......

Classical Gas

I must say I am impressed with the sound of Classical albums on the record player that I got from RPM and was set up my Marek. On holiday I picked the Leopold Stokowski MFP album of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" and the Deutsche Grammophon vinyl copies of the Herbert von Karajan conducted 6th, 8th and 9th Symphonies by Beethoven.

"Mars" from  "The Planets" was the piece that actually got me into Classical Music when Alan Freeman played it on his Saturday afternoon show. At school music lessons consisted of the music "teacher" putting on a classical LP and that was it. Incredibly tedious for kids who's music preference was single an pop songs, although ironically we were fine with Yes, Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield subjecting us to twenty minute pieces, but a twenty minute piece of music is seldom instantly catchy.

So just a short post, this and the visits are showing no sign of abating with 1400 visits yesterday and 38K over the last running month. I was hoping to hit 200K visit by the end of this year but today I will hit 220K so that has been smashed.

I've decided to share a take on "Mars" from the 2015 BBC Proms.

No Time

Just reading the excellent "Notes on a Nervous Planet" and something came up that applies to me. I continually feel that I do not have enough time to do things (may that's a symptom of getting older) but as Matt Haig points out, we can now communicate faster and more easily than every before, we have rapid travel options , washing machines, lawn mowers , microwaves , etc speed up things that took a lot more of our time than they did before.

When I left EE I didn't realise at first that I didn't have to travel, on general three hours a day to get to and from work. That's fifteen hours a week (I was stopped from working from home before I finished), that's sixty hours a month. Given that the average working week is 37 hours (150 hours a month) I gained more than 20% time by leaving. That is a lot of time.

The problem is life overload, to watch a TV program or a film , still takes as long as it takes, reading a book takes time, listening to Beethoven's 9th Symphony takes about 70 minutes to listen to (you could play it at 78 rpm but that would sound silly), but basically we do not really appreciate the extra time that modern life is giving use, and we should do.

Writing this takes time, and reading it takes time (though not as much time as it takes to write).

It is a beautiful Sunday Morning and it's an excuse to share the wonderful Flash Mob take on "Ode To Joy" from Beethoven's 9th . I showed this to the lady in the the Oxfam Shop in Helmsley and she loved it because she said it makes you realise what instruments go together to make this wonderful music.

The Best Record Ever?

We are always seeing polls about the greatest record, album , song , gig ever and people often ask me what was my favourite bit of some performance. My answer is almost always that I can't give an answer. I have a lot of  artists that I like and a lot of albums that I enjoy listening to over and over again but I am always open to new ideas. Having said that if you were to posit that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony was the finest piece every written I wouldn't argue against that.

I'm a great fan of Bob Dylan , Van Morrison , Tom Waits , Nick Drake and then I like Yes , Pink Floyd , Pop Will Eat Itself and Genesis . The list is very very long. I love Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland" but while probably "1983" is my favourite song , his take on "All Along The Watchtower" would be my favourite single of choice because it combines Hendrix's voice and playing with some excellent Dylan lyrics. The thing is "Elect Ladyland"'s predecessors are both amazing albums as well.

So I've hardly started and there is so much I could say. My favourite album of all time is Spirit's "Future Games" followed by "El Dorado" by the Electric Light Orchestra. "Future" Games" also contains a Spirit take on "All Along The Watchtower".

Going back to Dylan maybe "Lily,Rosemary and The Jack of Hearts" is by favourite song and is from "Blood on the Tracks" but then songs like "Desolation Row" and "Tempest" are wonderful (and long) songs.

I am also a fan of keeping it simple, and while it's amazing to play a million notes a second, if you can make one note interesting, then that is true genius. The Coasters' "I'm A Hog For You Baby" and "Tommy Gun" by The Clash both contain one note guitar solos. Added to this songs that just contain one or two chords mean that anyone can play them m Van Morrison wrote "Gloria" and Jonathan Richman's "Roadrunner" gets away with two chords.

I was writing this as an excuse to share The Avalanches "Frontier Psychiatrist" a totally dumbfounding patchwork of samples that solicitors gave up trying to sue for. Is is comedy ? Is it pop? I haven't a clue but it sounds amazing and the video is wonderful too, another example of musical genius and while it is a favourite of mine I really still can't tell you what my favourite is.

I Won't Watch Black and White Films, Films With Subtitles or Read Books

Obviously not me, but over the years I continually hear this from people, and variations on the same. Anything out of the blinkered area that they see means you (that's me) are a total weirdo. You don't like "Top Gear"? You're weird. You like classical music? You must be retarded. You don't watch X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent? You have no taste in music. You watch Asian language film? You're strange. You listen to German and French bands who sing in German and French? You are mad.

I've had all these reactions from people, and maybe it's why people seldom speak with me, but that's their loss. The fact they are cutting out of their life the films:

• Downfall
• Amelie
• The Seven Samurai
• Casablanca
• It's A Wonderful Life
• Young Frankenstein

....and more

and then the music of:

• Beethoven
• Mozart
• Philip Glass
• Can
• Amon Duul II
• Jacques Brel
• Alan Stivell
• Gong

..... and more

And the fact that people refuse to read for the flimsiest of reasons, missing out on the joy of hooking up your own imagination as someone's words take you on a journey that no film could ever do, I list the music I listen to and the books I read on here. I have finished "There Is No Map In Hell" which I bought just for the title and I discovered what it is like to run 214 Wainwright Peaks in seven days. which you can read about on Steve Birkinshaw's blog here, You might not be able to judge a book by the cover but it was the title that hooked me and though I have zero interest in Fell Running it did hook me.

So I should include a song that is not sung in English, so I'll go with Los Lobos take on Richie Valens' "La Bamba" from the soundtrack of the eponymous film

Christmas Day

I wasn't going to write anything today but I am having the most relaxed Christmas Day for a long time. Last night we watched Christmas films, "Scrooged", "Muppets Christmas Carol" and "Die Hard"

I had missed the sheer amount of Christmas References in "Die Hard" closing with "Let It Snow" sequing into Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" , the motif of which plays throughout the film, I suppose a reference to the German baddies, but "Ode To Joy" from Beethoven's 9th Symphony is one of the most uplifting pieces of music ever, although as I write this I'm listening to the beautiful "Once I Awakened" by Kevin Ayers from possibly his finest album "Confessions of Doctor Dream", I'd love to share both pieces with you and maybe I will.

Today I have hardly left the house, just to feed my neighbours' tropical fish, and that's a sort of coincidence because I think Kevin Ayers played with Gong who had a song called "Tropical Fish" on "Camembert Electrique". See that's me going off on a total tangent again, but that's the way we generally discover new things, which is usually a good thing.

Well I found a brilliant Flashmob take on "Ode To Joy" and it's wonderful to see the joy in everyone's faces when this is playing, the children loving it, who said classical music can't be cool, fun and joyous. It's possibly one of the most joyously brilliant things I've seen. Watch it, you'll love it.

Now go on, there's plenty of Christmas to enjoy, go and share the joy, smile and have fun.

Vandalising Album Covers

Vandalism

Was just reading about the design of the cover for David Bowie's "The Next Day" and how a lot of people said it was just vandalising a Bowie cover, and anyone can do that. Well yest anyone can do that, but very few think of doing that. Bowie thought the reactions were hilarious but it has been done before, and Bowie is a great one for lifting ideas.

Vandalism

I'm sure there are many examples of this but one of my favourites is "Another Monty Python Record" featuring a vandalised sleeve of Beethoven's 2nd Symphony , very simple but very effective.

I couldn't find a copy of the original album , so they may have created that themselves so as not to offent the original artist.








Anyway while I have all of David Bowie's albums I realised I had never listened to "Heathen", so put that on the player to check it out. One of the problems with Bowie is that I know all the songs on the albums I grew up with but that stopped when "Let's Dance" came out and I though that's enough for me.

The thing is I  stilled enjoyed the singles and "Everyone Says Hi" is a class song. From the opener "Sunday" through "Cactus" the album is excellent , maybe possibly dipping on "I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship" but it will be getting repeated plays in future.

Classical Music - The Good , The Bad and The Ugly

From an early age I learned to hate classical music. Music lessons at school consisted of a teacher putting on an album , flipping half way through , then nipping out for a fag leaving us to suffer the noise that we didnt want to listen to . But classical music was and still is deemed to be respectable , while everything else is for the uneducated proles.

Then there were great plays like Abigail's party in which Mantovani was presented as the height of sohistication , and the truly attrocious "Classic Rock" series , attempting to make rock respectable by having the melodies played by an orchestra , finally resulting in the even more attrocious "Hooked On Classics" series ,  classical music , with a disco beat "Stars On 45" style.

My reintroduction to classical music came through Alan Freeman playing "Mars" from Gustav Holst's Planets Suite on his Saturday Rock Show. Mars with its threatening martial rhythm is a superb piece , and prompted me to buy the album. A couple of listens and "Jupiter" is still my favourite instrumental piece from any genre.

Around this time John Peel started playing music by the Portsmouth Sinfonia and energetic Orchestra who basically couldnt play their instruments but tried , a bit. They backed Brian Eno on "Put A Straw Under Baby" from "Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy" and are rumoured to be making a comeback. They had at least one album and a single "Classical Muddly" . Whatever "Hooked on Classics" could do , the Portsmouth Sinfonia could realy screw up and manage to entertain in the process.

Now we have stuff like Classic FM which just presents classical music as stuff to fall asleep to . This si not so , you have Stravinsky , Wagner and lost of challenging stuff , for fun the light opera of Gilbert & Sullivan . If you were to tell me that Beethoven's 9th or something by Mozart was the greatest piece of music ever written , I wouldnt argue. My own personal favourite complete suite is Carl Orff's Carmina Burana . In "O Fortuna" it displays on of the main problems with classical music , going from quiet below human hearing level to earsplitting crescendo in a minute or so. Sound systems cant really cope. Anyway below should be a playlist of the album for you to listen to. Just because a lot of it is bland , boring , long , in a foreign language , doesnt mean it isnt worth the effort. It is , but you do have to be selective!!