(Via Kansas City Old Time Music.)
Category: Music
Music for piano n hands
Marc-André Hamelin takes extravagant mechanical revenge on an idiot tune.
Dance on a volcano
For fans of Genesis and Steve Hackett:
Ending well
Jonathan says that Shin Sekai Yori is “… the best science fiction TV show that I have ever seen, animated or otherwise.” I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but it definitely is in a class with Serial Experiments Lain and Dennou Coil. It’s the best show of any kind I’ve seen since at least Madoka Magica. The ending did not disappoint — not that I was worried; it was obvious early on that the creators knew exactly what they were doing.
It’s absolutely not for children, and even for adults I can’t give it an unreserved recommendation. It’s partly a horror story, with monsters and worse than monsters, all the more chilling for what isn’t shown. But if you have the stomach for it and are willing to think about aggression, social control and human nature, Shin Sekai Yori is worth your time.
*****
I can give Girls und Panzer an unreserved recommendation for all ages. The premise is silly — teams of high-school girls compete in tank battles — but the staff played it straight and made it work, and did so without panty shots. The last episode was exhilarating and satisfying. If you watch it with friends, you’ll likely cheer aloud as Miho and her comrades fight their desperate battle.
Memo to the Brickmuppet
Who needs a theremin when you’ve got a saw?
There are two kinds of dulcimer. This is the right kind.
(This post is a response to this.)
72 years ago
Patty Andrews died two weeks ago at the age of 94.
Musical archaeology
The worst time-sink on the internet is TV Tropes, followed by Wikipedia. And then there’s YouTube, where I got trapped this weekend. I wondered if I could find some of the barely-remembered songs I heard back in ancient times. Many hours later, I had located quite a few. Here are some I unearthed. You can judge for yourselves whether these were buried treasures or something else.
The truth about Lincoln …
… and Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding and Richard M. Nixon. Fred Himebaugh, a.k.a. The Fredösphere, who has neglected his weblog for too long, shares the results of his historical research. Content advisory: robots, alien gods, banjos.
Fred earlier wrote a chamber opera “They’re Made Out of Meat,” using the Terry Bisson short story as the libretto, as well as a touching ballad of interplanetary romance, “Earth Girl.”
Cold temperatures and warm hearts, true chemical romance, and how to avoid bad theology
Here are a few videos that recently caught my fancy.
There are no “gangnam” parodies because I’m sick of them.
No silver eagle of the steppe
US copyright law is stupid. Case in point: Girls und Panzer‘s eighth episode is missing about a minute in its Crunchyroll version. Unless you download a fansub, you are going to miss this 1938 song, the highlight of the episode.
Update: here’s the video, via Ivlin, who notes that “Copyright is demonstrably making art worse“.
(hic)
The Twenty-First Amendment was ratified on this day in 1933, making this tasteful song possible. Here is an atmospheric, evocative performance by a chamber ensemble conducted by Lindley A. Jones.
Saint-Saens, improved
This video satisfies your minimum daily requirement for high culture.
(Via Eve Tushnet.)
8,979 shows too many
I recently discovered that the Internet Archive contains over 100,000 live concerts that you can download, free and legally. Most of the performers I haven’t heard of, but there are quite a few of note. Acts represented include Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Brave Combo, Hot Club of Cowtown, as well as my recent enthusiasms Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3. There are also 8,980 Grateful Dead concerts. The archive also gives me a chance to sample bands who were previously just names to me, such as bluegrass eccentrics Split Lip Rayfield and Bad Livers, and just plain eccentrics like Hypnotic Clambake. The recording quality varies; most concerts I’ve listened to sound like good bootlegs.
Let’s all do the “Bulgarian Boogie.”
Now let’s do the “Hokey Pokey.”
Bach for lunch
The complete Goldberg Variations, performed by Kimiko Ishizaka, are available here in various formats, for free, thanks to Kickstarter. ((The .mp3 zip file is missing the twenty-eighth variation, but you can download that separately from the player on the page.))
The last Winfield post …
… maybe.
This is a slide show of the pictures I took at the Walnut Valley Festival. You might notice a lot of photos of Roger and Tricia. That’s partly because you were likely to hear good music when they were around. They are whom you hear in the video.
Fish music
Roger Netherton, a young friend of mine, placed second this year in the old-time fiddle contest at Winfield Friday. He celebrated by heading over to Carp Camp, where he led the assembled eccentrics in a couple of tunes. Here’s the first. It starts off with Roger alone.
There are more pictures of carp people below the fold.