Music Post

Still sick and not feeling like entering the foray of politics during this holiday season, so, even though it is after Christmas, I thought I'd share a Christmas song I recorded in my home studio a few weeks ago, and since my blog is musical musings, I thought I'd post on music. If you want to listen to my cover of "Mary Did You Know" go to my company's myspace page. I have a few different artists on there, but mine is the third track listed...

www.myspace.com/embryonicproductions and listen to "Mary Did You Know"...just for fun.

Have a happy new year.

9/9/09: Beattles, Palin

Today, the Beattles Remastered has been released. I haven't yet picked up my copy, but I will be soon. Here's a review from CNN:

The newly remastered Beatles box sets are a treat for a casual fan and a dream come true for die-hards.

The mono set may be revelatory for some, but even the box of stereo albums -- the best-known versions and the primary sales focus -- is a step up from the 22-year-old original CD releases.
Need proof?

Check out "Lovely Rita," from 1967's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
The shimmering guitar intro, followed by Paul McCartney's soaring "Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh," the bouncy bass line and John Lennon and George Harrison's smirky backing vocals, offers delicious ear candy that doesn't rot your teeth.

Many other audible delights emerge to the surface more often than they did in the prehistoric days of vinyl and cassette because of the remastering.

Harrison's surprisingly cheerful-sounding sitar that mimics Lennon's melody in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)," from 1965's "Rubber Soul," is much crisper.

Ringo Starr's rat-tat-tat drumming muscle on "Rain," from 1966, sounds brand new. The multitracked harmonies of "Because," from 1969's "Abbey Road," shimmer.

The remastering work likewise subtly expands the band's sound from its earlier days, a time when overdubs and studio tricks were kept to a minimum.

Listening to the band's debut album, 1963's "Please Please Me" (mostly recorded in a one-day session), it all but feels like being in the musty studio watching them perform these songs.
Lennon's sore-throated screaming (literally and figuratively) on the album's finale, "Twist and Shout," has never sounded more sandpapery -- and that's meant as a compliment.

Other full-throttle rockers, like the whoop-it-up Motown cover "Money (That's What I Want)" (from 1963's "With the Beatles") and Sir Paul's one-take vocal explosion on Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" (1964), also shake the walls.

If you want to know what it was like to see the Beatles perform in the Cavern Club during their pre-fame days, play these songs at a very high volume. Just make sure your neighbors don't mind.
...
For fans who have been bombarded with these songs countless times, there's something new as well.
A splendid time is guaranteed for all.
----------------------------------------
And in political news, Palin is still holding on to her "death panels" ridiculousness. If she still believes it, she's a fool. If not, she's a liar. Either way, I'm glad she isn't in the white house. We have enough of both already there.

"Is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats'
proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by-dare I say it-death panels?" she writes. "Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans."

So, because paranoia rang true for many Americans it makes it true? Not really, Sarah.

I really hope we have a better candidate in 2012 than her.

Les Paul dies at 94

Guitar master Les Paul, who created the famous Gibson Les Paul electric guitar {my dream guitar}, died today of severe pneumonia. He was 94.

Les Paul played guitar in clubs even in his 90s.

Paul likely will be best remembered for the Gibson Les Paul, a variation on the solid-body guitar he built in the early 1940s -- "The Log" -- and offered to the guitar company.
"For 10 years, I was a laugh," he told CNN in an interview. "[But I] kept pounding at them and pounding at them saying hey, here's where it's at. Here's where tomorrow, this is it. You can drown out anybody with it. And you can make all these different sounds that you can't do with a regular guitar."

Gibson, spurred by rival Fender, finally took Paul up on his offer and introduced the model in 1952. It has since become the go-to guitar for such performers as Jimmy Page.

"The world has lost a truly innovative and exceptional human being today. I cannot imagine life without Les Paul," said Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar, in a statement. "He would walk into a room and put a smile on anyone's face. His musical charm was extraordinary and his techniques unmatched anywhere in the world."

Paul is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Inventors Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He is survived by three sons, a daughter, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Until recently he had a standing gig at New York's Iridium Jazz Club, where he would play with a who's who of famed musicians.

He admired the places guitarists and engineers took his inventions, but he said there was nothing to replace good, old-fashioned elbow grease and soul.

"I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one," he said in 2002, "and it will probably whip the guy with 20 notes."

Rest in peace, Les.

Woman fined $1.9 million for illegally downloading music

In 2007 the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sued Minnesota mom Jammie Thomas-Rackett for illegally downloading 24 songs onto her personal computer. She lost the suit and was fined $220,000 by the jury. However, the Judge ordered a retrial based on a clerical error in the wording of jury instructions.

In the new trial the jury's verdict delivered today fined her $80,000 per song, for a total of $1.9 million.

Mrs. Thomas-Rackett is married with four kids and works on a Native American reservation.

Source

As if the record industry wasn't dying already, they go and do this.

Brightwood: band review.

Brightwood.

Named after a small town in Oregon, this band is a local phenomenon quickly becoming a national sensation.

Currently touring promoting their full-length album, Wake, released July '08, Brightwood is impressing audiophiles and making new fans nationwide.

Led by frontman Andrew Brittell's soaring vocals, the band's sound is completed by guitarist Colin Schneider, bassist Matt Fosket, and drummer Stephen Brittell's percussion and vocal harmonies--yes, the drummer sings while playing the drumset. In fact, Andrew & Stephen are identical twins, so during both the recording of an album and live the band's vocal melodies and harmonies perfectly mesh.

Seriously, check them out at myspace.com/brightwood and http://www.brightwoodmusic.com/