Tumblelogging, that is. Yes, because I have way too much time on my hands, I’ve started yet another blog. Only this one has a different concept. Here’s Wikipedia’s definition of a Tumblelog:
A tumblelog is a variation of a blog, that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, this format is frequently used to share the author's creations, discoveries, or experiences without providing a commentary.
That about covers it! Okay, I’ll be straightforward; it will basically be a collection of shit I find on the web, but it’s still all about me, me, ME! And, since the tumblelog is so much simpler to update, I’ll be updating it much more often. (Probably every day I’m online, but don’t hold me to that.) I’m also going feature a new “song of the day”, everyday. Here is the link:
You can also find updated links under the “tumblelog posts” on this page.
I’m definitely not abandoning this blog, I enjoy writing my drawn out, incoherent rants and raves (see last post), but it is time consuming. I’m still gonna try to post more, but, at the very least, I’ll be posting as often as I have. (this is my 10th post since the end of March.) So don’t you worry loyal readers! All 2 of you!
PS - I googled “tumble” to find a picture, but wasn’t satisfied with the results. So, I searched “falling down stairs” (because I’m violent like that) and found the gem above. But, within that search, I also found this cartoon which gave me a good chuckle:
PS-S – While writing this, it totally occurred to me that I have the perfect soundtrack to this post! It comes from this album, which I am the proud, proud owner of:
So my friend M-Y-K and I were joking about the 1975 Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony song “The Hustle” the other night. (Inside joke with long back story) That prompted me give it a listen yesterday, and you know, I honestly forgot how fuckin’ great the song is! I concede that it hasn’t dated nearly as well as other disco songs (keep in mind that it was released pretty early in the disco era), but if you listen with an objective ear, it’s really nothing short of a great pop song.
What is there to not love about this song? I especially love the Herb Alpert-y touch with the horns. I also love the lyrics, all 5 words of it. “Do The Hustle!” “Do it!” I’m sure this observation as been made before, but jeez, that lyric is so demanding! It’s like they’re holding you at gun point; “You BETTER shake your booty or else!”
I also wanted to add my praise to the first two volumes (and only the first two volumes) of “The Disco Years” released by Rhino records in 1990. I’m not really into compilation CDs, but I’ve had these2 CD’s for many years now and they are really superb. In my opinion, if somebody quickly wanted the most absolutely basic, yet moderately comprehensive 70s disco collection in 4 CDs or less, I would recommend these two albums, along with the Donna Summer 12 inch single compilation called “The Dance Collection” and maybe “Dance, Dance, Dance: The Best of Chic”? That’s just my opinion, does anyone else have recommendations?
My last post on “El Rio Del Tiempo” at EPCOT changing over to a “Three Caballeros” theme reminded me to let those who were unaware know that Disney has been releasing many great old “Disneyland Records” titles exclusively on iTunes.
While I admit it would have been much nicer to have these in uncompressed CD quality, several of these titles have never been re-released since they were originally issued on LP, so, I’m just content that they are easily available in any form. Plus, they’ve done and outstanding restoration job (to my ears, especially when you consider the age of some of the material.) Here is a list of what has been released thus far:
Released November 7, 2006
1. Annette - NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 2. Songs from the Mickey Mouse Club Serials 3. Hawaiiannette 4. Mary Martin Hi-Ho 5. Ukulele Ike Sings Again 6. Burl Ives: Chim Chim Cher-ee & Other Children’s Choices 7. Rex Allen Sings 16 Golden Hits 8. Let’s Get Together with Hayley Mills 9. Woody’s Round Up 10. Musical Highlights from the Mickey Mouse Club TV Show 11. Fairy Tale Weddings (Instrumental Impressions) 12. A Child’s Garden of Verses - NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 13. Walt Disney Takes You To Disneyland * 14. Professor Ludwig Von Drake * 15. Annette’s Beach Party – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 16. Summer Magic Soundtrack 17. Alice In Wonderland (Camarata) * 18. Sebastian 19. Rhythm of the Pridelands 20. Walt Disney Records Archive Collection Volume 1 – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 21. Walt Disney Records Archive Collection Volume 2 – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE
Released January 16, 2007
1. The Black Hole Soundtrack - NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 2. Fess Parker: Cowboy and Indian Songs 3. Louis Prima: Let’s Fly with Mary Poppins * 4. Danceannette – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE * 5. Mickey Mouse Disco * 6. Echoes of Disneyland – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 7. Saludos Amigos – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE * 8. Babes In Toyland 9. Stan Jones: Ghost Riders In the Sky – NOT PREVIOUSLY AVAILABLE 10. Tinpanorama
Apparently, there will be another wave coming sometime in June. The asterisks indicate my favorites; the ones I have downloaded or plan to download. This of course includes the “Saludos Amigos” album.
This album is not the original soundtrack, but rather, a studio album from 1958. But it’s a fantastic album nonetheless and one I highly recommend. The album actually contains music from both “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros” sung by an anonymous Disney chorus. As I said in the “Rio” post, these two films are among my favorites. You also can’t beat an album that features a cover with Mary Blair sketches!
There were 3 studio albums produced containing music from “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros” (the original scores actually used in the films have never been released in any form). The last was the aforementioned 1958 Disneyland album now on iTunes. Previous to that, the there were two 78 RPM albums (literally, a set of three records each, in an album) for both “Amigos” and “Caballeros”. These were both released on the Decca label in 1944, the year “Three Caballeros” was released (Disney didn’t form their own label until about a decade later).
The fact that the show has changed little in 35 years is reassuring, and I think that’s a big reason for its continued popularity. One change I wished they hadn't made was the models; they should have kept the old school ones, Janice, Dian and Holly.
Look at them! If I ran that show I would still have these ladies on. 50 and 60-something year old plastic surgery victims are always hot! And, they would still have these outfits and hair, then, the show would be perfection.
My friend M-y-k and I have gone to a taping twice within the past year, once before and once after Bob Barker announced his retirement. Neither times were we called to “come on down!” (Apparently, we’re not “TV pretty”). I guess winning some Michael C. Fina or a Broyhill dinette set wasn’t in the cards for us.
I’ll spare you all the details of my experience at The Price Is Right, the million other blog entries out there pretty much cover it. It’s mostly many hours of waiting in boredom until the hour of taping which is very exciting. Oh, and the studio smells like the 70’s. I also really, really want to make a shirt from the proscenium curtains. (As seen in this old picture of Rod Roddy...)
You can see my friend and I yell out prices in the audience tomorrow, April 30, 2007.
In the meantime, enjoy my favorite TPIR music/sounds/links…
I definitely enjoy jazz, but I wouldn’t consider myself a huge aficionado. I really haven’t studied its history in-depth. My main interest in jazz seems to be improvisational vocalists. (Not all of them improvise, which I don’t get. Isn’t that the whole point of “jazz”?) I don’t know why, they just speak to me for some reason. Come to think of it, most singers I like, pop, jazz or otherwise employ some sort of improvisation. Betty Carter, one of my favorites, had this to say about another favorite during an interview:
"I can't think of any white girl singer who has her own style except, perhaps Anita O'Day,"
I agree. If ever there was an original white girl singer, it was Anita. That quote is found in the liner notes of this CD. Ted Ono, who penned the liner notes, goes on to say this:
“For those who are not familiar with Ms. Carter it should be explained that this was the greatest compliment she could have ever given to a white jazz singer. That is because she has been known to be terribly down on non-black singers who received any favorable attention from jazz DJs and critics.”
From the outset, I wanted my blog to include selections of music that I like. So here you go, my first will pay tribute to one of my favorite singers, Anita O’Day. Anita passed away last Thanksgiving.
I, like most of her fans, first discovered Anita O’Day by watching “Jazz on a Summer’s Day”, the fantastic Bert Stern film documenting the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival/America’s cup. It’s a documentary that was filmed in a similar style to the “Woodstock” documentary that was done years later. Her performance was nothing short of stellar. She sang "Sweet Georgia Brown"and “Tea for Two”. I found the performance fascinating mostly because of the strange dichotomy between the way she looked and the way she sang. When you see her come upon the stage, she is dressed as she later described, for “tea time”, because of the afternoon time that she performed. She looks sharp, but not that unlike a model in some 1950s car advertisement. Once she starts to sing, however, it’s sort of shock. She gets down and swings hard! Then, to later find out that she was in the middle of her fifteen year long heroin addiction, and that she was quite high off her mind during this performance, well, it was quite unexpected and intriguing to say the least. Her 1981 autobiography “High Times, Hard Times” is a fascinating and entertaining read I highly recommend. She also talks about this performance, her heroin addiction and other subjects in this great 1987 NPR interview.
She actually started out with big bands during the swing era, but later developed more of a bebop sensibility out of necessity.A doctor had accidentally sliced off her uvula during a tonsillectomy when she was very young; as a result she had no natural vibrato. She was unaware of this until years later when she had already begun singing. She used it to her favor and came up with her distinctive style which was very ahead of it’s time for the 1940s. The songs I chose this time around showcase that distinct style....
....OK, maybe not so much this first song. This cut of “Memories of You” was recorded with the Stan Kenton orchestra in 1945. I think this song, (along with her later signature “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”) definitely proves that despite her vocal “limitations” (for lack of a better word) she could still knock a ballad out of the park.
The undisputable highlights of her career were the seventeen albums she recorded on the Norgran and Verve labels between 1952 and 1962. This is “Body and Soul” off the “Anita Sings the Winners” albumfrom 1958.
“Once Upon a Summertime” is the title track to the second album she released on her own label, after she got clean in the late sixties. However, I believe the track was recorded live before she got clean, or, it at least sure sounds like it! I love her dreamy take on this song.
Anita O’Day had a very long career, literally spanning six decades, so I’m sure you’ll see her popping up on here again.
Hello, my name is Christian. I spent 40 years as a night watch man at a cranberry silo. I reside in California.
crpeoplemover